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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

Utah Geological Association

Abstract


Cenozoic Geology of Western Utah: Sites for Precious Metal and Hydrocarbon Accumulations, 1987
Pages 527-532

A Type Model for Future Oil and Gas Fields in the Cenozoic Basins of the Eastern Great Basin

Floyd C. Moulton

Abstract

The Grant Canyon oil field Nyc County, Nevada is herein considered to be a type model for future oil and gas production from the Cenozoic basins of the eastern Great Basin. The field has produced 5,996,113 barrels of oil since September, 1983. Production through April, 1987, gives an average monthly flow rate of 136,275 barrels of oil and an average daily flow rate of 4,492 barrels of oil. The Grant Canyon #3 producing well average flow rate was 3,809 barrels of oil per day during the month of April, 1987, making it the most prolific single producing well in the United States.

The production is from a down-faulted mass of Paleozoic carbonates that are covered on all four sides by middle and late Tertiary rocks. This fault trap (buried hill) is only 3,900 ft below the valley floor and can be defined by close-spaced gravity work. Other such shallow masses of Paleozoic carbonates could exist in other Cenozoic-formed valleys in the Basin-and-Range Province and Overthrust Belt of western North America. It is believed that low-cost gravity methods could define several Tertiary-covered buried hills in most of the Cenozoic-formed valleys (basins) in western Utah, eastern Nevada, and eastern Idaho with similar oil possibilities as that found in the Grant Canyon field.

This new exploration concept will be confined to the deeper Cenozoic-formed valleys where the source (hydrocarbon-rich) rocks were not fully maturated by previous sediment loading or thrust loading. Recent high-temperature intruded areas could have all hydrocarbons expulsed, eliminating some parts of a few valleys for oil and gas potential.

The deeper structurally formed potential oil and gas traps can be evaluated with seismic work across the valleys and the mountain ranges. These deeper structural accumulations could have even larger reserves of oil and gas under the valleys and the mountains than that found in the Grant Canyon field.


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