Application of Well Log Tomography to the Dundee and Rogers City Limestones, Michigan Basin, USA
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Michigan Technological University Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open Reports 2004 Application of well log tomography to the Dundee and Rogers City Limestones, Michigan Basin, USA Mellisa A. Le M. Michigan Technological University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/etds Part of the Geology Commons Copyright 2004 Mellisa A. Le M. Recommended Citation Le, Mellisa A. M., "Application of well log tomography to the Dundee and Rogers City Limestones, Michigan Basin, USA", Master's Thesis, Michigan Technological University, 2004. https://doi.org/10.37099/mtu.dc.etds/328 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/etds Part of the Geology Commons APPLICATION OF WELL LOG TOMOGRAPHY TO THE DUNDEE AND ROGERS CITY LIMESTONES, MICHIGAN BASIN, USA By Mellisa A. Le A THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE Geological Engineering MICHIGAN TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2004 This thesis, “Application of Well Log Tomography to the Dundee and Rogers City Limestones, Michigan Basin, USA” is hereby approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in the field of Geological Engineering. Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences Signatures: Thesis Advisor: James R. Wood Department Chair: Wayne D. Pennington Date: Abstract The Michigan Basin is located in the upper Midwest region of the United States and is centered geographically over the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. It is filled primarily with Paleozoic carbonates and clastics, overlying Precambrian basement rocks and covered by Pleistocene glacial drift. In Michigan, more than 46,000 wells have been drilled in the basin, many producing significant quantities of oil and gas since the 1920s in addition to providing a wealth of data for subsurface visualization. Well log tomography, formerly log-curve amplitude slicing, is a visualization method recently developed at Michigan Technological University to correlate subsurface data by utilizing the high vertical resolution of well log curves. The well log tomography method was first successfully applied to the Middle Devonian Traverse Group within the Michigan Basin using gamma ray log curves. The purpose of this study is to prepare a digital data set for the Middle Devonian Dundee and Rogers City Limestones, apply the well log tomography method to this data and from this application, interpret paleogeographic trends in the natural radioactivity. Both the Dundee and Rogers City intervals directly underlie the Traverse Group and combined are the most prolific reservoir within the Michigan Basin. Differences between this study and the Traverse Group include increased well control and “slicing” of a more uniform lithology. Gamma ray log curves for the Dundee and Rogers City Limestones were obtained from 295 vertical wells distributed over the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, converted to Log ASCII Standard files, and input into the well log tomography program. The “slicing” contour results indicate that during the formation of the Dundee and Rogers City intervals, carbonates and evaporites with low natural radioactive signatures on gamma i ray logs were deposited. This contrasts the higher gamma ray amplitudes from siliciclastic deltas that cyclically entered the basin during Traverse Group deposition. Additionally, a subtle north-south, low natural radioactive trend in the center of the basin may correlate with previously published Dundee facies tracts. Prominent trends associated with the distribution of limestone and dolomite are not observed because the regional range of gamma ray values for both carbonates are equivalent in the Michigan Basin and additional log curves are needed to separate these lithologies. ii Acknowledgements This research project was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, contract #DE-FC26-00BC15122 and PRF 39872-AC8 awarded to Dr. J. Wood. Neuralog Inc. provided scanning and digitizing software and LandMark Corp. provided the GeoGraphix software. I thank my advisor, Dr. Wood, for providing me this research opportunity, for keeping me on track and for helping me edit my thesis. I also thank Dr. “Buddy” Wylie for serving on my committee, for providing literature search materials, for the many discussions and for helping me use GeoGraphix. I will ever be grateful for all of the time that he spent helping me every step of the way. I also acknowledge my other committee members, Dr. Gierke for always giving me guidance and wisdom and Dr. Harrison for providing invaluable input on the thesis and for traveling many miles to be at my defense. I thank Carol Asiala, creator of the Slice 2 program, for helping me with MS ACCESS and for having patience with all of my requests. I am also grateful for the digitizing aid I received from Gerard Czarnecki and I thank Amie Ledgerwood for helping me with the graduate school paperwork. I thank Doug Moore for the MUB trips, good meals, rocks (especially greenstones and datolite) and many years of great friendship. I thank Father Larry for spiritual guidance. I thank my family: Dad, Mom, Kim, Annah, Thai, Grandpa and Grandma for their love and for always being proud of me. Lastly, I thank my fiancé, Brian Mooren, for being my confidant and my strength. iii Table of Contents Abstract............................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ..........................................................................................................iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................. iv List of Figures.................................................................................................................viii Introduction....................................................................................................................... 1 Purpose ............................................................................................................................ 1 Regional Setting .............................................................................................................. 2 Michigan Basin Oil.......................................................................................................... 3 Literature Review ............................................................................................................. 4 Stratigraphy....................................................................................................................... 7 Detroit River Group......................................................................................................... 7 Kawkawlin Bentonite ...............................................................................................................7 Dundee Limestone........................................................................................................... 8 Reed City Member....................................................................................................................9 Rogers City Limestone .................................................................................................... 9 Bell Shale....................................................................................................................... 10 Well Log Tomography Introduction............................................................................. 11 Methods............................................................................................................................ 13 Part 1.............................................................................................................................. 13 Preparation of Digital Log Files .............................................................................................13 Formation Tops Data..............................................................................................................14 Borehole Corrections..............................................................................................................15 Normalization .........................................................................................................................16 iv Slicing using Slice 2: “Dundee” Interval................................................................................18 Part 2.............................................................................................................................. 20 Kawkawlin Bentonite Top Data .............................................................................................20 Slicing using Slice 2: Kawkawlin Bentonite Bottom-up........................................................20 Part 3.............................................................................................................................. 21 Rogers City and Dundee Tops Data .......................................................................................21 Slicing using Slice 2: Rogers City and Dundee Intervals.......................................................22 Depositional Model ......................................................................................................... 23 Results .............................................................................................................................