Quantification
of Slope Channel-Levees, the
Kane, Ian1, Ben Kneller2,
Mason Dykstra3, William. D. McCaffrey1 (1)
As exploration pushes towards deeper
water and increasingly complex reservoirs it becomes imperative to have
detailed facies models. In the case of submarine
channel-levees, an often ambiguous context coupled with poor preservation
potential leads to a paucity of detailed outcrop studies. Here we document the
‘master bounding levees' of a large, coarse grained channel-levee complex
within the Upper Cretaceous Rosario Formation of Baja California, Mexico. Levee
facies consist of thinly interbedded
non-amalgamated, sharp based sandstones and siltstones, often highly bioturbated, with variable palaeocurrents
and often containing slide blocks and slumps. Tractional
structures in channel-proximal levee facies consist of
ripples, including climbing, and overturned ripples, and parallel lamination. Structureless sandstones are also common in
channel-proximal localities. In channel-distal levee outcrops starved ripples
are abundant. Levee sandstones thin according to a power-law, with standard
deviation in thickness decreasing linearly. The levee crest is identified based
upon moving averages of bed thickness, which show thinning upwards of inner-
and thickening upwards of outer-levee deposits. These data are used to present
a model for levee growth and migration of the crest. Additionally, spatial
variation of grain size within the levee sandstones will be presented. The
field data will be compared to modern, ancient, subsurface and experimental
studies.
AAPG Search and Discover Article #90063©2007 AAPG Annual Convention, Long Beach, California