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(Milk River) Strata Between the Hatton and Abbey-Lacadena Pools, Southwestern Saskatchewan – Preliminary Observations

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(Milk River) Strata Between the Hatton and Abbey-Lacadena Pools, Southwestern Saskatchewan – Preliminary Observations Stratigraphic Relationship of Alderson (Milk River) Strata Between the Hatton and Abbey-Lacadena Pools, Southwestern Saskatchewan – Preliminary Observations Per Kent Pedersen Pedersen, P.K. (2003): Stratigraphic relationship of Alderson (Milk River) strata between the Hatton and Abbey-Lacadena pools, southwestern Saskatchewan – preliminary observations; in Summary of Investigations 2003, Volume 1, Saskatchewan Geological Survey, Sask. Industry Resources, Misc. Rep. 2003-4.1, CD-ROM, Paper A-11, 11p. Abstract Large quantities of economically recoverable gas have recently been discovered within the Alderson Member of the Lea Park Formation in the Abbey-Lacadena pools. This occurrence, located approximately 50 km northeast of the prolific Hatton Pool, has sparked development within the area as well as exploration for similar plays elsewhere in southwestern Saskatchewan. Strata of the Alderson Member are commonly identified by industry and government geologists as belonging to the Milk River Formation. Recent research has indicated, however, that most of the Alderson strata are younger than strata of the Milk River Formation. Within the Abbey-Lacadena pools, the Alderson Member is composed of stacked, subtly upward-coarsening parasequences. Gas is hosted in thin, very fine-grained sandstone beds interbedded with silty mudstones. The sands likely were deposited in a storm- dominated, pro-delta setting below fair-weather wave base. The main productive sandstone is a composite lowstand unit, which both onlaps, and is overlain by, mudstones. Structural maps of the top of the Alderson Member (Milk River “shoulder”) show the Abbey-Lacadena area as a structural high. Thus, initial drilling indicates prolific gas production within the Abbey-Lacadena pools is closely related to the concurrence of a structural high and lowstand sandstones. Ongoing exploration in the surrounding area will reveal if gas is trapped within a conventional pool related to stratigraphy and structure, or if gas occurs in a more regionally extensive unconventional accumulation, possibly with the Abbey-Lacadena area being a prolific “sweet spot”. The latter would indicate the possible influence of other gas trapping mechanisms, such as within downdip fine-grained facies due to high capillary pressure. Keywords: Alderson Member, Milk River Formation, southwestern Saskatchewan, biogenic gas, gas potential, shallow low-permeability sandstones, Cretaceous, Abbey-Lacadena pools, Hatton Pool. 1. Introduction Strata of the Santonian-Campanian Alderson Member (commonly referred to as Milk River by industry and government geologists; Figure 1) contain large quantities of biogenic gas hosted within shallow sandstone reservoirs in southwestern Saskatchewan and southeastern Alberta (Shurr and Ridgley, 2002). In Saskatchewan, Alderson production has mainly been within the large Hatton Pool, where gas is often co-produced from sandstones of the Medicine Hat Member (Niobrara Formation). The discovery in late 1999 of an estimated 14 billion m3 (0.5 TCF) producible gas within the Abbey-Lacadena pools, located approximately 50 km northeast of the Hatton Pool (Figure 2), has sparked exploitation in the area to delineate the pools and exploration for similar plays in southwestern Saskatchewan. The reservoir sandstones of the Abbey-Lacadena pools occur eastward of the previously mapped, northwest-southeast-trending, eastern depositional edge of Alderson sandstones (Meijer-Drees and Mhyr, 1981; Payenberg, 2002b). These sandstones are here interpreted as detached lowstand deposits. The basinward occurrence of economically productive gas from Alderson sandstones within the Abbey-Lacadena pools indicates that reservoir sandstones are present eastward of traditionally explored areas within southwestern Saskatchewan. The objective of this ongoing study is to achieve a better understanding of sedimentary facies, depositional environments, and sequence stratigraphic architecture of the Alderson Member and, therefore, of the distribution of reservoir sandstones containing economically productive gas. Integration of the stratigraphic architecture with structural maps will indicate whether the trapping mechanism is conventional or unconventional. Numerous cores of the First White Speckled Shale, Alderson Member, and Lea Park Formation within southwestern Saskatchewan have been described. Sedimentary facies and stratigraphically significant surfaces observed in cores were identified on core gamma-ray logs which were correlated with other well logs in order to map these features regionally. Saskatchewan Geological Survey 1 Summary of Investigations 2003, Volume 1 2. Stratigraphy In southwestern Saskatchewan and southeastern Alberta, distal, fine-grained strata located northeast of the pinchout of shoreface sandstones of the Virgelle Member of the Milk River Formation were defined as the Alderson Member of the Lea Park Formation by Meijer-Drees and Mhyr (1981). The Alderson Member includes strata previously referred to as Milk River equivalent, and which often continue to be referred to as Milk River by industry and government geologists. Silty shales and sandstones of the Alderson Member conformably overlie the white speckled, dark shales of the First White Speckled Shale Member of the Niobrara Formation (Nielsen, 2003). O’Connell et al. (1999) proposed the presence of a major unconformity within the lower portion of the Alderson Member, which truncates Milk River strata to the west and which is onlapped by strata of the middle and upper portion of the Alderson Member Figure 1 - Stratigraphic chart of Santonian-Campanian lithostratigraphic units in (Figure 1). Accordingly, except southwestern Saskatchewan and correlative stratigraphic units in nearby areas. for a thin lower shaly portion Stratigraphic position of an unconformity between the Milk River Formation and representing the distal deposit of Alderson Member is controversial, as indicated by the question marks; for detailed the eastward prograding Milk discussion see Shurr and Ridgley (2002). River clastic wedge, the main thickness of the fine-grained deposits of the Alderson Member in Saskatchewan are younger than strata of the Milk River Formation in Alberta. The interpretation of a diachronous relationship between the Milk River Formation and the middle and upper part of the Alderson Member is also supported by Ridgley (2000), O’Connell (2001), and Payenberg (2002a, 2002b). Shurr and Ridgley (2002), however, proposed that the lower Alderson unconformity might instead correlate with the boundary between the Virgelle and Deadhorse Coulee members of the Milk River Formation (Figure 1). Thus, more research is needed on the stratigraphic relationship between the Milk River Formation and the Alderson Member, and is beyond the scope of this paper. The thickness of the Alderson Member increases toward the northeast from 130 m within the eastern Hatton Pool to more than 180 m within the Abbey-Lacadena pools (Figure 3). An interesting feature of the cross-section (Figure 3) is the near parallel arrangement of the top of the Carlile Formation and the top of the Alderson Member. This suggests that the northeastward increase in thickness of the Alderson Member, at least partly, reflects infilling of accommodation space that had not been filled by the eastward prograding clastic wedge of the Medicine Hat Member. The top of the Alderson Member is distinct on resistivity logs, and is referred to as the Milk River “shoulder” (Figure 3). In southwestern Saskatchewan, Alderson strata are unconformably overlain by a lag of chert pebbles in a matrix of Pakowki mudstones (observed in cores in wells 6-27-1-23W3 and 10-32-1-24W3). This relationship shows that the Pakowki transgression, and its geophysical log expression as the Milk River “shoulder”, reflect erosion and winnowing as far east as southwestern Saskatchewan. In southeastern Alberta, a similar transgressive pebble lag marks the boundary between the Alderson Member and shales of the Pakowki Formation (Meijer-Drees and Mhyr, 1981; O’Connell, 2001; Payenberg, 2002a, 2002b). In southeastern Saskatchewan, ongoing research suggests that the Milk River “shoulder” reflects a major unconformity related to substantial sea- level fall (Christopher and Yurkowski, this volume). Shales of the Pakowki Formation hence unconformably overlie the Alderson Member. The approximately two million year hiatus between the Milk River and Pakowki formations in southern Alberta (O’Connell, 2001; Payenberg, 2002a, 2002b) is thus, in Saskatchewan, encompassed by deposition of the middle and upper portions of the Alderson Member and the hiatus between the Alderson Member and Pakowki Formation (Figure 1). Saskatchewan Geological Survey 2 Summary of Investigations 2003, Volume 1 Figure 2 - Structural map of the Milk River “shoulder” (top of the Alderson Member and Milk River Formation) in southwestern Saskatchewan. Note the concurrence of structural contours and pool boundaries. Location of the well-log cross- section of Figure 3 is shown. Pool boundaries are as defined as of January 2003. Contours in metres above mean sea level. 3. Facies and Depositional Environments Previous studies of the Alderson Member in southwestern Saskatchewan and southeastern Alberta interpreted the fine-grained deposits as having a marine, shoreface, shelf to pro-delta origin (Meijer-Dress and Mhyr, 1981; O’Connell et al., 1999; Ridgley, 2000; O’Connell, 2001; Payenberg, 2002a, 2002b). Initial examination of Alderson cores within the eastern portion
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