Wright State University CORE Scholar Browse all Theses and Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2018 Interpretation of a Seismic Reflection Survey and Geophysical Well Logs in Jay County, Indiana: Orientation and Composition of a Carbonate Layer Below the Mount Simon Sandstone Md. Saiful Alam Wright State University Follow this and additional works at: https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/etd_all Part of the Earth Sciences Commons, and the Environmental Sciences Commons Repository Citation Alam, Md. Saiful, "Interpretation of a Seismic Reflection Survey and Geophysical Well Logs in Jay County, Indiana: Orientation and Composition of a Carbonate Layer Below the Mount Simon Sandstone" (2018). Browse all Theses and Dissertations. 1958. https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/etd_all/1958 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at CORE Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Browse all Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of CORE Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INTERPRETATION OF A SEISMIC REFLECTION SURVEY AND GEOPHYSICAL WELL LOGS IN JAY COUNTY, INDIANA: ORIENTATION AND COMPOSITION OF A CARBONATE LAYER BELOW THE MOUNT SIMON SANDSTONE A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science By MD. SAIFUL ALAM M.S. Dhaka University, 2015 B.S. Dhaka University, 2013 2018 Wright State University WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL April 24, 2018 I HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER MY SUPERVISION BY Md. Saiful Alam ENTITLED Interpretation of a Seismic Reflection Survey and Geophysical Well Logs in Jay County, Indiana: Orientation and Composition of a Carbonate Layer Below the Mount Simon Sandstone BE ACCEPTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF Master of Science. Ernest Hauser, Ph.D. Thesis Director David F. Dominic, Ph.D. Chair, Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences Committee on Final Examination Ernest C. Hauser, Ph.D. Doyle R. Watts, Ph.D. David F. Dominic, Ph.D. Barry Milligan, Ph.D. Interim Dean of the Graduate School ABSTRACT Alam, Md. Saiful, M.S., Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Wright State University, 2018. Interpretation of a Seismic Reflection Survey and Geophysical Well Logs in Jay County, Indiana: Orientation and Composition of a Carbonate Layer Below the Mount Simon Sandstone. In August 2017, a dynamite-sourced 2D seismic reflection survey was conducted along a gravel road northwest of Portland, Indiana. The main focus of the survey was to determine the orientation of a lithologic unit previously identified by Welder (2014) on a similar 2D seismic reflection survey in the same area. Drillers logs of two wells within this area identified a limestone layer below the Mt. Simon Sandstone, and a similar limestone layer was identified in a well drilled in Clark County, Ohio. As the focus of this study, this limestone layer will be informally named the ‘Votaw limestone’. The seismic line studied by Welder (2014) was oriented west-east; the seismic line utilized in this study is oriented north-south and crosses the previous one. Together, these seismic lines allow the true orientation of the Votaw limestone to be determined. Geophysical logs from nearby wells and two distant ones (north central Indiana and western Ohio) were used to produce synthetic seismograms which together with drillers logs were used identify the top of Eden, Trenton, Knox, Eau Claire, Mt. Simon, and Middle Run formations. The top of the Votaw limestone was associated with a reflection in the seismic data using the synthetics and the drillers logs for the nearby wells. Importantly, where the Middle Run iii Formation exists, the Votaw limestone occurs below the top of the Middle Run. The Votaw limestone is horizontal in both north-south and west-east seismic lines, confirming that it is truly horizontal in this area. This limestone could be present beneath the Middle Run in Warren County, Ohio, based on similar seismic characteristics of reflectors. The pre-stack CDP’s were used to analyze the Amplitude Variation with Offset (AVO) response of the limestone layer. The limestone reflector primarily exhibited a negative gradient with some variations suggesting an impurity of the limestone. The limestone reflector in the area is parallel to the overlying Paleozoic reflectors suggesting the lack of any Grenville deformation. For all these reasons, the site could be a prime candidate for drilling and coring of the entire lithologic sequence beneath the Mt. Simon Sandstone. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... iii LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................... x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. xi 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 1 1.1. Discovery of Middle Run Formation ............................................................................... 2 1.2. Origin of Middle Run Formation ..................................................................................... 3 1.3. Structural Setting of Indiana ............................................................................................ 6 1.4. Stratigraphy of the Area ................................................................................................... 8 1.5. Previous Study................................................................................................................ 12 1.6. Data Acquisition ............................................................................................................. 15 2. METHODOLGY .................................................................................................................. 17 2.1. Data Processing .............................................................................................................. 17 2.2. Depth Conversion ........................................................................................................... 20 2.3. Well Log Interpretation .................................................................................................. 25 3. INTERPRETATION............................................................................................................. 27 v 3.1. Synthetic Seismogram Generation ................................................................................. 27 3.2. Wavelet Extraction ......................................................................................................... 28 3.3. Analysis of Formation Tops ........................................................................................... 30 3.4. Comparison of Synthetic to Seismic .............................................................................. 31 3.5. Picking Horizons ............................................................................................................ 38 3.6. Votaw limestone ............................................................................................................. 43 4. AVO ...................................................................................................................................... 52 4.1. AVO Class Description .................................................................................................. 52 4.2. AVO Analysis ................................................................................................................ 53 5. SUMMARY & CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................... 57 References ..................................................................................................................................... 59 APPENDIX ................................................................................................................................... 62 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 - The extent of the East Continent Rift Basin ................................................................... 4 Figure 2 - Annotated and interpreted versions of COCORP OH-1 ................................................ 5 Figure 3 - Model showing the East Continent Rift System ............................................................ 6 Figure 4 - Tectonic features of Indiana. .......................................................................................... 7 Figure 5 - General Stratigraphic Column for Paleozoic Rocks in Indiana ................................... 10 Figure 6 - The geographical distribution of various rocks formations found in Indiana. ............. 11 Figure 7 - The Location of WSU-2013 seismic line ..................................................................... 12 Figure 8 - Annotated and Interpreted version of WSU-2013 ....................................................... 14 Figure 9 - Enlarged portion of the WSU-2013. ............................................................................ 15 Figure 10 – The WSU-2017 seismic line .....................................................................................