Abstract: Influence of Permian Salt Dissolution on Distribution of Shallow Niobrara Gas Fields, Eastern Colorado

David W. Oldham, Richard A. Smosna

Subsurface analysis of Permian salt and related strata in the shallow Niobrara gas area on the eastern flank of the Denver basin reveals that the location of faulted anticlines which produce gas from porous chalk is related to the occurrence of six Nippewalla Group (Leonardian) salt zones. Salt distribution is controlled by the configuration of evaporite basins during the Leonardian, truncation at a sub-Jurassic unconformity (which has completely removed Guadalupian salts), and post-Jurassic subsurface dissolution.

Significant dissolution took place in response to Laramide orogeny and subsequent eastward regional groundwater flow within the Lyons (Cedar Hills) Sandstone aquifer. Initially, dissolution occurred along a regional facies change from sandstone to salt. Solution collapse allowed for cross-formational flow and removal of younger salts.

Shallow Niobrara gas fields are situated above salt outliers or along regionally updip salt edges. No significant Niobrara production exists in areas where salt is absent. Structural relief across fields is related to Leonardian thickness variations, rather than subsalt offset. Seismic data reveal abrupt Leonardian thinning at the regionally updip limit of Eckley field, which has produced over 33 BCFG.

Thickness of residual salt may be important in controlling the amount of gas trapped within the Niobrara. Where thick salts are preserved, structural relief is greater, the gas-water transition zone is thicker, and gas saturation is higher at the crests of faulted anticlines.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90952©1996 AAPG Rocky Mountain Section Meeting, Billings, Montana