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Reconstructing the Upper Permian Sedimentary Facies Distribution of A Reconstructing the Upper Permian sedimentary facies distribution of a tight gas fi eld in Central Europe on the basis of a modern analog fi eld study in the Panamint Valley, western U.S. Anna Alexandra Vackiner1,*,†, Philipp Antrett1,†, Frank Strozyk1, Harald Stollhofen2, Stefan Back1, and Peter Kukla1 1Geological Institute, Energy and Mineral Resources Group, RWTH Aachen University, Wüllnerstaße 2, 52062 Aachen, Germany 2North Bavarian Center of Earth Sciences, 24 FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg University, Schlossgarten 5, 91054 Erlangen, Germany ABSTRACT to (2) distributary fl uvial channel deposits sic, and Cretaceous (Lohr et al., 2007). Much of toward the basin center and (3) ephem- the original Permian structural and stratigraphic Comparison of modern deposits in the eral lake deposits in the deepest basin area. grain, including the location of Permian depo- Panamint Valley, western United States, to (4) Eolian dune accumulation and preserva- centers and associated eolian reservoirs, was core and geophysical data from a Permian tion is mainly concentrated on hanging-wall rearranged. Therefore, most Permian fault-con- (Rotliegend, Germany) tight gas fi eld allows locations. However, additional dune deposits trolled paleohighs do not match the present-day for improved understanding of the inter- are proposed above overlapping step faults structural highs (Vackiner et al., 2011); however, action of tectonics and sedimentary processes and on footwalls of synsedimentary active their identifi cation is crucial for the understand- during Rotliegend deposition. The Panamint faults. (5) Sandfl ats occur on the upwind and ing of Upper Rotliegend II facies patterns and Valley was selected for a modern analog of downwind margins of the dune fi eld. These accommodation space generation. Well infor- the subsurface Rotliegend Basin because predictions are calibrated to core and geo- mation in the study area is only available from both study sites are characterized by (1) elon- physical well log data. present-day structural highs below the Zech- gated grabens with large-scale bounding stein salt, while present-day structural lows are fault zones resulting from synsedimentary INTRODUCTION commonly undrilled. Subsurface information of transtensional tectonics; (2) fault-controlled these sites is thus often limited to seismic data. paleotopography as key controlling param- Studying the sedimentary and tectonic com- The few cored wells alone do not allow a satis- eter for the sediment facies distribution, plexity of Permian (Rotliegend sandstone) tight factory regional interpretation and/or extrapola- including alluvial fans, dunes, wet and damp gas fi elds in Central Europe requires integrated tion of the sedimentary facies. interdune sandfl ats, and ephemeral dry lake approaches from fi eld-based analog studies , Because of the limitations of geophysical deposits; and (3) local sediment provenance laboratory analysis, seismic and well data inter- data, the modern analog study presented herein from sedimentary and volcanic rocks. The pretation, and structural modeling. One of these took place in the northern part of Panamint analysis of satellite images and fi eld data tight gas fi elds in the focus of recent research Valley (Lake Hill Basin) in Inyo County, east- from the Panamint Valley enabled the devel- is located in northwestern Germany, east of the ern California, United States. It is located in a opment of a conceptual model involving Dutch Groningen gas fi eld, on the eastern foot- zone of active transtensive deformation along topography, synsedimentary faulting, and wall of the Ems Graben at ~4200 m depth (Figs. the North American plate boundary (Stewart, wind activity as controlling factors for the 1 and 2). The tight character of the reservoir 1988), an area of complex intracontinental sediment facies distribution. The application is attributed to extensive formation of quartz deformation (Lee et al., 2009). The north- of the model to the reconstructed Rotliegend overgrowth, pressure solution, and authigenic south–trending Panamint Valley represents one paleotopography of the German subsurface fi brous illite (Gaupp and Solms, 2005). The of the active grabens of the Basin and Range study site allows for prediction of the facies reservoir rocks, which are formed by hetero- Province (Smith, 1976; Fig. 3). The regional distribution prior to the Triassic–Cretaceous geneous fl uvio-eolian facies, were deposited tectonic setting strongly infl uences the hydro- tectonic overprinting. As a consequence, we at the southwestern margin of the Southern thermal and structural characteristics of the expect a sediment facies succession from Permian Basin (Fig. 1; Vackiner et al., 2011). region (Jayko et al., 2008). Large alluvial fans (1) alluvial fan deposits along the hang- These rocks are overlying the Carboniferous developed simultaneously with modern tec- ing walls of the basin-bounding fault zones basement and patchy andesitic to basaltic Rot- tonics. The fans source a shallow ephemeral dry liegend volcanic rocks. lake in the central basin. In the North Panamint The prediction of location and distribution of Valley, an active dune fi eld is located on allu- *Corresponding author: [email protected] -aachen.de sandstone reservoirs in the fl uvio-eolian deposits vial material between the dry lake and the cur- †Present address: Wintershall Holding GmbH, is challenging, particularly due to the multiphase rently active fan. The study site further includes Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 160, 34119 Kassel, Germany tectonic overprinting during the Triassic, Juras- volcanic rocks at the base of the sedimentary Geosphere; October 2012; v. 8; no. 5; p. 1129–1145; doi:10.1130/GES00726.1; 16 fi gures; 1 supplemental fi le. Received 27 May 2011 ♦ Revision received 3 May 2012 ♦ Accepted 29 May 2012 ♦ Published online 18 September 2012 For permission to copy, contact [email protected] 1129 © 2012 Geological Society of America Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article-pdf/8/5/1129/3342812/1129.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 Vackiner et al. E 0° E 10° N 55° Mid North Sea High Ringk Øbing Fyn High N 55° SPBSPB ELEL London Brabant Mass GHGH E 0° 200 km Lambert Conformal if Conic Projection E 10° Alluvial fan conglomerates and fluvial depositional environments Faults and structural lineaments Aeolian sandstone depositional environments Location of study area Sandflat to mudflat depositional environments Basin centred dry lake deposit Figure 1. Map outlining maximum extent of the depositional area of the Southern Permian Basin (SPB) during the sedimentation of the Permian late Upper Rotliegend II (modifi ed from Ziegler, 1982; Legler, 2005). The star shows the location of the German subsurface study site (displayed in detail in Fig. 3). NL—Netherlands Low; GH—Groningen High; EL–Ems Low. succession. Consequently, the Panamint Valley described in two separate subsections. The fi rst the central part of the Southern Permian Basin provides a sedimentary facies, tectonic setting, is a discussion of the subsurface study site, Ems (Gast and Gaupp, 1991). and basement type similar to those of the Rot- Graben in northwestern Germany. The second The Ems Graben in the central Southern liegend subsurface study site. A particular focus subsection focuses on the modern analog study Permian Basin underwent sedimentary transten- of this analog study was to delineate the pos- site in the Panamint Valley, western U.S. sional tectonics during deposition of the Upper sible topographic control on the sedimentary Rotliegend II, while subsequent phases of tec- facies distribution, and to study the reactive vol- Subsurface Study Site, Ems Graben, tonic activity, e.g., rifting in the North Sea dur- canic infl uence on the sedimentary system in the Northwestern Germany ing earliest Triassic until Late Jurassic to Early German study site. Even though the Panamint Cretaceous time (Ziegler, 1990), overprinted Valley’s present-day confi guration represents The subsurface study area is located at the the Rotliegend structural highs (Vackiner et al., only a snapshot in its development history, it boundary of the Ems Graben at the southwest- 2011). The reconstructed graben structure in the provides valuable high-resolution insights into ern margin of the Southern Permian Basin, study area is characterized by two bounding, the facies distributions, the facies architecture in and is characterized by a U-shaped, mostly north-south–trending strike-slip to normal fault a regional context, and the interaction of con- north-south–trending Zechstein salt wall, zones with offsets of as much as 250 m in the temporaneous sedimentary systems, unavailable situated above an asymmetrical Late Permian west (Fig. 2, FZ-1) and as much as 150 m in from geophysical subsurface data and punctual graben (Vackiner et al., 2011). During deposi- the east (Fig. 2, FZ-2). To the north, the eastern information of wells and cores. tion of the Rotliegend, the Southern Permian fault zone ceases, and the asymmetrical gra- Basin represented an intracontinental basin ben changes into a half-graben (Vackiner et al., GEOLOGICAL SETTING of ~1700 km length and 300–600 km width, 2011; Fig. 2). A third fault zone in the graben extending from the eastern UK to Poland and center exhibits an Upper Rotliegend II fault- In the following, the geological settings the Czech Republic (Plein, 1993; McCann, controlled paleorelief of ~100–150 m. of the study areas in northwestern Germany 1998; Fig. 1). During deposition of the Upper The deepest
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