4 Shale Reservoirs—Giant Hydrocarbon Resources for the 21st Century I
Monday, 16 March 2009
10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
GEOCHEMICAL CONSTRAINTS ON THE HYDROGRAPHY OF DEVONIAN-MISSISSIPPIAN SHALE BASINS IN SOUTH-CENTRAL AND EASTERN NORTH AMERICA
Paper number: 4-4
Program: Theme Sessions
Time: 11:10 AM – 11:25 AM
Authors
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Susan M. RimmerSouthern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL
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Robert LoucksThe University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
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Stephen RuppelThe Unviersity of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
Abstract
Chemostratigraphic evidence from organic-rich mudstones of the south-central and eastern North America elucidates the restricted nature and hydrography of the depositional environments in various basins preceding and during the late Paleozoic Alleghany-Ouachita Orogeny. Using an environmental proxy developed from the sediment geochemistry of modern anoxic silled basins, the stratigraphic concentrations of total organic carbon (TOC) and molybdenum (Mo) in the Devonian-Mississippian organic-rich strata can be used to assess the deep-water residence time in each basin. For example, the Mo-TOC relationship preserved within the Barnett Formation of the Fort Worth Basin reveal a high degree of subpycnoclinal water mass restriction and an extended timescale of deep-water renewal of at least 8000 years and potentially as long as 20,000 years. Deep-water residence times for organic-rich shales of the Illinois and Appalachian Basins were much shorter. Molybdenum-TOC results, along with additional TOC-S-Fe data from the New Albany, Ohio, Marcellus, and Barnett Shales will be presented and evaluated.