Depositional setting and reservoir-scale architecture of sandstone bodies of the Green River Formation in Evacuation Creek, Dragon Quadrangle, eastern Uinta basin, Utah
Abstract
The Green River Formation is an Eocene lacustrine deposit that is present in several Rocky Mountain basins.In the Uinta basin, the Green River Formation has produced large amounts of oil and gas from many fields, the largest being the Greater Altamont-Bluebell field in the northern margin of the basin, the Monument Butte and Natural Buttes fields in the central region, and the Greater Red Wash field in the northeastern part of the basin.In addition, the Green River Formation contains one of the largest oil shale deposits in the world.The Uinta and Piceance basins are estimated to contain 1.32 trillion barrels and 1.53 trillion barrels respectively of total in-place oil shale resource.This study focuses on littoral to sublittoral sandstone deposition of the Green River Formation in the eastern Uinta basin of Utah, in Evacuation Creek, near the Utah-Colorado border.This area contains extensive and continuous outcrop of the Green River Formation exposed in steep cliffs and gullies, and allows for the study of these units at the reservoir-scale. Litho-stratigraphically, the area contains the transition of the marginal lacustrine Douglas CreekMember to the open lacustrine Parachute Creek Member.The outcrops here contain very fine to medium-grained sandstone, siltstone, organic rich mudstone, carbonate grainstone and microbialite that reflect changes in depositional conditions in Ancestral Lake Uinta.This area was subject to frequent changes in lake level due to changes in climate and tectonics.This study aims to 1) interpret the depositional setting of the sedimentary package over the stratigraphic interval, and 2) describe the depositional architecture of these sand bodies in multiple dimensions at the reservoir-scale.
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