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1996 | Buch

Fuel-Mineral Resource Base Kapitel lesen Erstes Kapitel lesen

Terrigenous Clastic Depositional Systems

Applications to Fossil Fuel and Groundwater Resources

verfasst von: Prof. William E. Galloway, Dr. David K. Hobday

Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Enthalten in: Professional Book Archive

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Über dieses Buch

Nonrenewable energy resources, comprising fossil fuels and uranium, are not ran­ domly distributed within the Earth's crust. They formed in response to a complex array of geologic controls, notably the genesis of the sedimentary rocks that host most commercial energy resources. It is this genetic relationship between economic re­ sources and environment that forms the basis for this book. Our grouping of petro­ leum, coal, uranium, and ground water may appear to be incongruous or artificial. But our basic premise is that these ostensibly disparate resources share common genetic attributes and that the sedimentological principles governing their natural distributions and influencing their recovery are fundamentally similar. Our combined careers have focused on these four resources, and our experiences in projects worldwide reveal that certain recurring geologic factors are important in controlling the distribution of com­ mercial accumulations and subsurface fluid flow. These critical factors include the shape and stability of the receiving basin, the major depositional elements and their internal detail, and the modifications during burial that are brought about in these sediments by pressure, circulating fluids, heating, and chemical reaction. Since the first edition of this book in 1983, there has been a quantum leap in the volume of literature devoted to genetic stratigraphy and refinement of sedimentologi­ cal principles and a commensurate increase in the application of these concepts to resource exploration and development.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
1. Fuel-Mineral Resource Base
Abstract
Most of the world’s energy and groundwater resources are in sedimentary rocks, and any procedure that helps to categorize, understand, and predict the external geometry, internal architecture, and other properties of sedimentary rocks can contribute to more efficient discovery, exploitation, and resource management. The depositional systems approach that we advocate involves rigorous three-dimensional characterization of lithological units and analogy with modern depositional environments, taking into account preservation potential and modifications that occur with progressive burial. Where subsurface information is fragmentary or incomplete, identification with a particular depositional system permits extrapolation beyond the data base and anticipation of lithofacies in unexplored tracts. This procedure often proves invaluable in preliminary assessment of prospectivity and in ranking frontier or immature exploration acreage.
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
2. Approaches to Genetic Stratigraphic Analysis
Abstract
The real world is immensely complex (and) continuous. Isolated structures are therefore subjective and artificial portions of reality, and the biggest initial problem is the identification and separation of meaningful sections of the real world. On the one hand, every section or structure must be sufficiently complex … so that its study will yield significant and useful results; on the other, every section must be simple enough for comprehension and investigation (Chorley and Kennedy 1971, p.1).
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
3. Alluvial Fans
Abstract
Alluvial fans are conical, lobate, or arcuate accumulations of sediment that have a focused source of sediment supply, usually an incised canyon or channel from a mountain front or escarpment. Fans are depositional geomorphic features, defined by their point source, equidimensional planview geometry, mounded topographic profile, and radial sediment dispersal pattern (Chorley et al. 1984; Chap. 14). They are deposited along highland margins in response to the high rate of sediment supply and abrupt reduction in stream competency as the gradient flattens onto the basin floor. As such they contain the coarsest, most poorly sorted, and most proximal units in the terrestrial sediment dispersal system (Fig. 2.1). Fans may be spatially isolated or may coalesce laterally, forming an elongate sedimentary prism known as a bajada or alluvial apron (Fig. 3.1). Downflow they merge into finergrained, lower-gradient eolian flats, fluvial plains, or playas.
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
4. Fluvial Systems
Abstract
Fluvial systems primarily collect and transport sediment into lacustrine or marine basins. However, in certain basin settings favoring subaerial accumulation of sediment, such as subsiding coastal plains, intermontane basins, and tectonic forelands, fluvial depositional systems may become a major or even dominant component of the basin fill. Even where their volumes are minor, fluvial facies are often disproportionately important as hosts for mineral fuel deposits, particularly petroleum and uranium.
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
5. Delta Systems
Abstract
A delta forms where a river transporting significant quantities of sediment enters a receiving basin. In one sense, few processes or environments are unique to the deltaic setting. However, the interaction of subaerial fluvial processes and subaqueous processes of marine or lake basins produces distinctive facies assemblages. A delta is a progradational river-fed depositional system that commonly produces a bulge in the shoreline. As suggested by Fisher et al. (1969) and Moore and Asquith (1971), a delta system includes all contiguous, genetically related subaerial and subaqueous facies. Excluded by this definition are prograding linear or simple curvilinear shore-zone systems, in which longshore or onshore sediment transport dominates, and drowned river valleys or estuaries.
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
6. Shore-Zone Systems
Abstract
The shore zone, excluding deltas, comprises the narrow, high-energy transitional environment that extends from wave base, commonly at about 10 m (35 ft) to the landward limit of marine processes (Fig. 6.1). Although the shore zone is a narrow, linear zone, shorelines migrate over time to leave a record of widespread shore-zone deposits, with considerable bearing on the distribution of hydrocarbons, coal, uranium, and other mineral resources.
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
7. Terrigenous Shelf Systems
Abstract
Terrigenous shelves include both epeiric (epicontinental) platforms and continental shelves with a mantle of land-derived sediments. Epeiric platforms are broad, shallowly inundated continental areas. Modern examples such as the North Sea, Hudson Bay, and Gulf of Carpentaria are small by comparison with many of their ancient counterparts. Continental shelves are submerged continental margins, dipping very gently (typically about 1°) from the outer edge of the shore zone to the shelf break, where there is an abrupt increase in slope. Where the shelf break is not well defined, the shelf is arbitrarily confined to depths shallower than 200m (650ft) (Johnson and Baldwin 1986). Present-day shelves have a complex depositional and erosional evolution that is dominated by the rapid early Holocene sea-level rise of more than 100 m. Modern early post-transgressive shelves provide, at best, partial analogues for the diversity of shelf systems found in the stratigraphic record.
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
8. Slope and Base-of-Slope Systems
Abstract
Slope and base-of-slope depositional systems (simply called slope systems for brevity) occur in relatively deep water beyond the shelf break. However, the meaning of “deep” depends upon basin type and tectonic context. On modern continental margins the shelf break typically lies at depths of 90–180m (300–600ft), but in intracratonic, foreland, and continental pull-apart basins the depth may be less. Furthermore, our concept of the shelf edge and slope setting is biased by our Holocene perspective. Contemporary continental margins lie at depths that increased abruptly during rapid glacioeustatic sea-level rise of about 120m (400ft). Pre-Pleistocene shelf edges probably had a broad, but somewhat shallower depth range; in many basin settings, delta, alluvial plain, or fan systems prograded directly into deep water for extended periods of geologic time, and a distinct shelf and basinward shelf edge were generally absent.
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
9. Lacustrine Systems
Abstract
Lacustrine systems have assumed new importance with the growing recognition that they contain some of the richest oil-prone source rocks, which in many extensional basins are located in zones of high thermal maturation, in close proximity to porous synrift or postrift reservoirs. Rift-basin lake systems underlie many passive-margin basins, where they may constitute a rich hydrocarbon source. Apart from their hydrocarbon potential, lacustrine systems host substantial coal and uranium resources, as well as bedded metalliferous ores and commercially important evaporites such as trona. Indeed, the physical and chemical environments encountered in lakes produce diverse mineral associations, some of which are diagnostic of lacustrine environments.
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
10. Eolian Systems
Abstract
Studies of eolian systems have been spurred by their association with hydrocarbons, for example in the Permian Rotliegendes of the North Sea, the Jurassic of the Gulf of Mexico and western United States, and elsewhere. In other geologic situations, they host epigenetic and placer minerals of commercial importance. Although commonly not as thick as other depositional systems, ancient examples such as the Mesozoic Navajo Sandstone and its correlatives locally attain 900 m (3000 ft). In contrast, the Triassic Botucatu Sandstone of Brazil, which covers a preserved area over three times larger than the Navajo, is generally only 10–20m (30–65 ft) thick (Bigarella 1979; McKee 1979c).
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
11. Depositional Systems and Facies Within a Sequence Stratigraphic Framework
Abstract
Quantitative analysis of sediment supply rate, subsidence and uplift rates, and eustatic sea-level change demonstrates order of magnitude changes in the ratios of these regime variables over timespans of tens of thousands to a few million years. This chapter focuses on the results of this history of change — the punctuated accumulation of depositional systems and their component facies within a Stratigraphic framework defined by surfaces of nondeposition, bypass, or erosion.
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
12. Depositional Systems and Basin Hydrology
Abstract
Although a discussion of hydrogeologic processes and basinal flow systems may seem to be a departure from this examination of depositional systems, it is included for several compelling reasons.
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
13. Coal and Coalbed Methane
Abstract
Coal-forming environments have waxed and waned in extent since the mid-Paleozoic, having been associated with a restricted range of environments and hydrologic regimes during relatively brief geologic timespans. The three major episodes of coal genesis were the late Carboniferous and Permian, the late Jurassic through early Cretaceous, and the late Paleocene and Eocene (Haszeldine 1989), occupying paleoclimatic zones from equatorial to near-polar (Fig. 13.1).
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
14. Sedimentary Uranium
Abstract
Although not a fossil fuel, uranium shares with petroleum and coal many similarities in geologic origin, mode of occurrence, and utilization. Existing fission reactors consume 235U, producing waste byproducts of the induced fission process. It is noteworthy that less than 1% of naturally occurring uranium is the desired 235U isotope, the remainder consisting predominantly of 238U and traces of 234U. Nuclear reactors currently produce approximately 10% of the electricity consumed in the United States and account for substantial power-generating capacity in several European countries and Japan.
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
15. Petroleum
Abstract
For the industrial nations of the world, petroleum has fueled the twentieth century. Despite accelerating depletion of the resource, new technologies and exploration concepts are contributing to effective replacement of production, and oil and gas will remain major contributors to the world energy supply well into the next century. Because the discovery of hydrocarbon reserves is an extremely geology-intensive process, the petroleum industry has directly and indirectly initiated, supported, and incorporated much of the accumulated research on sedimentary basins and their contained deposits. Similarly, the industry has been the single largest worldwide employer of earth scientists. This tremendous expenditure of manpower and research on a particular energy resource and its geologic environs has led to considerable knowledge of its origins and distribution patterns.
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
16. Facies Characterization of Reservoirs and Aquifers
Abstract
A trend in applied facices sedimentology during the late the twentieth century is the shift in focus from hydrocarbon exploration, with its need for reservoir prediction and extrapolation, to detailed reservoir characterization. As many older oil and gas fields reach maturity, they must be redeveloped and advanced production technologies applied if recovery is to be maximized. At the same time, the burgeoning processing power of reservoir simulators requires sophisticated, quantitative description of the three-dimensional distribution of porosity and permeability and of bounding impermeable layers. Emphasis is on the internal facies and bedding architecture of reservoir sand bodies and on accurate quantification of flow properties. Genetic facies analysis is being successfully applied to this process. Well log, core, and, increasingly, three-dimensional seismic data are being used to map, interpret, and quantify reservoir architecture.
William E. Galloway, David K. Hobday
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Terrigenous Clastic Depositional Systems
verfasst von
Prof. William E. Galloway
Dr. David K. Hobday
Copyright-Jahr
1996
Verlag
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Electronic ISBN
978-3-642-61018-9
Print ISBN
978-3-642-64659-1
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61018-9