Fault
-Propagation Folding in the October Field, Northern Gulf of Suez, Egypt
By
Tamer Mohamed Reda1, Adel Ramadan Moustafa2, Ali Mohamed Abd-Allah3, John Dolson4
(1) Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company, Cairo, Egypt (2) Ain Shams University, Egypt (3) Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt (4) BP, Egypt
A detailed study of seismic and well data of the giant October Field in the
northern Gulf of Suez, Egypt shows a steeply dipping monoclinal western flank
dissected by normal and reverse faults. A major southwest dipping rift parallel
normal fault
, formed during early rifting, dissects pre-Miocene (pre-rift)
rocks, forming the western (up dip) boundary of the field. Upward propagation of
this
fault
through the overlying, predominantly ductile Miocene syn-rift rocks
at later stages of rifting is accommodated by a
fault
-propagation fold.
Although the monoclinal flank of this fold is dissected by steeply dipping
normal faults and a few reverse faults, the predominantly shale-rich syn-rift
section acts as a good lateral seal for pre-Miocene reservoirs of the field.
Fault
-propagation folds are a common structure bounding the updip side of
several tilted
fault
blocks in the rift on the surface and in the subsurface.
Similar folds have previously been mapped on the Sinai Peninsula, the eastern
exposed margin of the Suez rift. We compare and contrast these outcrop features
with those of the subsurface at October Field.