traps the home

of petroleum

Traps and their Associations

Forms
Anticlinal
(characterized by
dip reversal)

Fault

Associations
Folds
Salt domes and their intrusions
Uplifted blocks (horsts)
Buried hills
Reefs
Sand lenses
Growth faults
Rock removal or redistribution
e.g., solution, stylolites
Faulting
Salt domes and other intrusions
Rock removal or redistribution
e.g., solution, stylolites

Traps and their Associations

(contd)
Up-dip wedge-outs
(stratigraphic)

Lens
(stratigraphic)

Depositional changes
Cementation/ diagenesis
Asphalt clogging
Unconformities

Sand lenses
Salt dome cap rock
Carbonate reefs

Trapping features

Percentages of fields or pools

Type of trap

Lithology of
Reservoir
rock

USA

USA majors

World Majors
(non-communists)

Giant oil and

gas fields

Anticline

65.4

77.8

58.2

89.1

Fault

5.2

Unconformity

0.7

Reef &other
Stratigraphic

10.2

Combination

18.5

Sandstone

7.8
10.8

6.0
16.1

11.4

9.4

11.9
61.7

55.1

Carbonate

31.9

32.0

41.9

Fractured
shale,
igneous and
metamorphic
rocks

1.3

6.3

3.0

Cap-rock / seal formation

Lithological aspects:

Cap rock / Trap sealing formation has two principal

characteristics:
Complete impermeability to gas/oil

Ductility the property of deforming

plastically under stress
The seal lithologies in order of decreasing ductility
(Downey,1984)
Salt rock Anhydrite Kerogen rich shales Clay
rich shales (Clay shales) Silty shales Carbonate
mudstones (Marls) Cherts
Anhydrites are ductile at moderate to large burial
depths but becomes brittle at shallow depths

Schematics showing how fracture volume may be

dependant on litho-tectonic position and how the
nature of internal deformation influences fracture
potential in a fold (Mitra, 1988)

Cap-rock / seal formation (Contd)

Capillary characteristics of seals:

Sealing capability is measured by the capillary

pressure (entry pressure, or displacement pressure) of
the rock

Fault related seals:

Sealing fault
Juxtaposition fault seals

Diagenetic seals
Processes those create trapping seals
Chemical compaction through pressure solution of
silicate & carbonate
Concentration of insoluble clay minerals &
organic matter during chemical compaction
Cementation by authigenic minerals
Volume increase in rock constituents resulting from
hydration or replacement
Coalescive recrystallisation
Mechanical deformation of ductile constituents
Emplacement of immobile organic residue derived
from crude oil & natural gas
Sealing cement include silica minerals, clays, zeolites,
carbonates, sulfates, chlorides, & other minor mineral
groups

SEM of authigenic chlorite

Authigenic chlorite crystals, shown at 1500 times

magnification, have grown in a secondary pore space.

Structural Traps
Largest group of HC accumulation
known at present, because methods
have been devised for locating them
in the subsurface with some degree of
accuracy

Anticlines
In majority of the cases, search for oil is largely
equivalent to the search for anticlines

HC accumulates at the crestal part in a permeable

bed with dip reversal

Shape of the anticlines vary greatly

Dip from < 1 to high angles
Symmetric to asymmetric
Closed volume Volume of the structure between
its highest point and the spilling point

Anticlines (Contd)
When the thickness of the reservoir rock
exceeds the height of the closure of the
arched structure Seat is provided
throughout by water-bearing reservoir rock
(This condition provides maximum storage
capacity for a single reservoir rock)

Anticlines (Contd)
For a structure filled with HC to the spilling
plane, a superimposed reservoir rocks (each
with its own cap-rock & spilling plane)
aggregating in thickness more than the
height of the closure are potentially able to
hold more oil or gas than a single reservoir
rock equaling this total thickness in a
structure of identical form

Anticlines (Contd)
An anticline feature superimposed on a
regional monocline, its axis lying in the
direction of regional dip, will lack closure and
produce an open anticlinal nose when its
axis dips throughout in the direction of the
dip of the monocline. An effective trap can
then result only if the open side is closed by
some additional structural or stratigraphic
feature, e.g., a fault or a permeability barrier

Anticlines: Notable examples..

Kirkuk Field (Iraq) One of the largest
oil-producing anticlines; Productive area
extends in three culminations over a length
of ~50km
Golden Lane Field (Mexico) Occurs as
local highs along an arch extending ~ 80 km
Most oil-producing anticlines, however are
only a few km in length, & often are
associated with some faulting

Cross section of the Masjid-I-Sulaiman Oil-field, Iran. This is

asymmetrical anticline of Asmari limestone in the foothill area
of Iran. Height of the oil column ~ 2200'. Porosity in the non
productive section <5% & permeability 1mD. Porosity in the
pay zone 9 14% & permeability 10 20 mD. Pay ranges
between 25 75% of the Asmari thickness. Cap-rock very
compact nodular anhydrite.

Structure contours of the Salt

Creek Oilfield, Natrona country,
Wyoming. This is an
asymmetrical dome, elongated
approximately N-S, a
considerable number of faults
cut the crest and flanks, and the
closure is 1,500'. Productive
area: ~15 km (N-S), ~7 km (E-W).
The anticline was formed in
latest Cretaceous or early
Tertiary; Second frontier
sandstone acted as a
stratigraphic trap before the oil
moved into the present
structurally determined position
(first frontier sandstone).

Depth contours of Wilmington

anticline, California (~20 km X ~7
km) dissected by a series of
transverse normal faults giving
rise to separate pools. Seals are
provided by claystones and
shales. Oil properties differ
considerably in the various fault
blocks.
There are seven major
producing zones (Late Miocene
to Early Pliocene); Reserve: ~3
billion barrels of produceable oil
(Maguga,1970)

Bermudez field, Reforma region, SE Mexico. Structure

contours on productive Cretaceous carbonate formations in
roughly equidimensional dome over an intrusion of Jurassic
salt. Contours in km below sea level.

Fault Traps
Relationships between faults & petroleum
accumulation are complex and are largely dependent
on the local structural circumstances and timing in
relation to oil and gas migration

Faults vary in size from very small local disclosures

to major breaks more than 100 miles long

Fault planes are often complex fracture zones

rather than simple surfaces

Faults may lie entirely in the subsurface or they

may reach the surface and affect the local topography

Figure: Sketches of two types of fault seals (Watts,

1987); (a) Sealing fault, (b) juxtaposition fault seal

Schematic
representation of HC
traps most
commonly
associated with the
variety of structural
traps.T and A:
displacements
towards and away
from viewer; BC:
Basement Complex.

Fault Traps (Contd)

Beds may be unexpectedly repeated or
apparently thickened, thinned or even completely
eliminated as a result of faulting
In drilling cores, faults may be detected by
slickensides i.e., rock samples with grooves,
scratches or friction-polished surfaces

Relationship between the directions of movement

of the blocks of strata intersected by the fault is
important in petroleum geology

Fault Traps (Contd)

Relatively few oilfields are associated with
reverse & thrust faults

To some extent, there is relationship between

folding & faulting

Faulting taking place in the later phase of folding

close to the fold axis may result in accumulated HC
escape

An assortment of trapping mechanisms created by faults. Only

two of the seven examples are true fault traps

Typical fault-associated traps in Tertiary strata of the western

Gulf-coast Basin, USA. Both stratigraphic & structural
accumulations in rollover anticline, on downthrown side of
down-to-the coast fault (left); accumulation primarily
controlled by closure on upthrown side of down-to-the coast
fault (right).

Typical fault-associated traps in Tertiary strata of the western

Gulf-coast Basin, USA. Accumulation against up-to-the-coast
normal fault (left); accumulation against keystone faults over
the crest of deep-seated salt intrusion (right).

Fault Traps (Contd)

Faults can provide physical barriers to oil
movement by setting an impermeable bed against a
reservoir formation

The trapping capacity of a fault is directly related

to the differences in displacement pressures
between the reservoir and boundary- rock which it
brings into contact

Faults associated with salt domes have

considerable influence on the accumulation of oil
(e.g., Gulf coast of USA), acting sometimes as seals
and sometimes as channels of migration

Typical traps in Niger Delta Oil-field showing synthetic (growth

faults syndepositional) and antithetic faults, and position of
various kinds of oil accumulations and possible avenues of
migration between pools (Weber & Daukoru, 1975)

Development of synthetic and antithetic synsedimentary faults

in Tertiary Niger Delta. (b) Development of growth faults when
rate of deposition (Rd) exceeds rate of subsidance (Rs). (c)
equivalent development when Rd is in balance with Rs.

Cross-section through typical growth-fault in the Uzere oilfield, Nigeria (7 8 km long, 3 4 km wide; porosity 40%,
permeability 1 2 darcy).

Analyses of sealing and non-sealing capacities of normal

faults in the American Gulf Coast, according to juxtapositions
against sand bodies

Analyses of sealing and non-sealing(Contd)

Hawkins oil and Gas field, Texas Gulf Coast Basin.

Symmetrical dome over deep salt uplift, with abundant radial
and longitudinal normal faults which have minor influence on
the trap.

Salt Dome Structures

Natural evaporates are deposits apparently
formed by the evaporation of brines to dryness in
arid conditions

Often found interbeded with carbonate rocks &

red and green shales in cyclical sequences

Principal evaporates are halite (NaCl) and

gypsum or its dehydrated form, anhydrite

Salt Dome Structures (Contd)

Evaporite beds suffer plastic flow at deep burial
at ~ 25,000' or more; ~ > 200 C

Evaporite beds of almost every ages are known,

but Silurian, Permian, & Triassic times seem to
have been most favourable for their formation
Silurian Saline Series ~ 10,000 Sq. miles; often
250' thick in USA
Permian Castile Anhydrite ~ 1,500' thick, 200
miles across in Texas & New Mexico

Salt Dome Structures (Contd)

Many parts of the world have buried evaporite
beds thousands of feet below the present surface
and generated plugs & domes

Immediately overlying strata are typically raised

and/or fractured

Pillar-like masses are often several miles in

diameter

Salt Dome Structures (Contd)

Salt domes may penetrate considerable
thickness of sediments including reservoir
rocks/beds; may form surface hills (e.g., Kuh-INamak, near Bushire in Iran)

Oil accumulations are associated with the Salt

domes in several parts of the world

Salt Dome Structures (Contd)

Relationship of salt domes to the oil accumulations is
essentially structural
The salt may seal the upper broken end of a reservoir bed
along which migration of oil takes place
Intrusion of the salt may produce arching in overlying
sediments with the resulted formation of anticline
Beds on the flanks of the penetrating salt mass is
disturbed and faulted; these faults act as channels of
migration or as barriers
Reservoir rock may wedge out or be beveled by
unconformities in the flank areas and form traps
Porous and permeable salt dome cap rock can serve as a
reservoir rock

Salt Dome Structures (Contd)

Reasons for cessation of salt flow
The mother bed is limited in volume
Equilibrium is attained with the density of the
surrounding rock
Resistance to continued fracture, uplift or
displacement of the overlying rocks

Salt Dome Structures (Contd)

Cap rocks

The cover lies on top of salt mass and is typically made up

of a series of zones dominated, from the base upwards, by
anhydrite, gypsum, and then limestone, often with pockets
of sulfur

Origin of salt dome cap rocks

The rock may be part of a bed, which immediately overlie
the salt bed and carried up by the salt dome
The anhydrite of cap rock may be residual, resulting from
solution of the far more soluble NaCl from the top part of the
salt intrusion
Relatively late chemical reactions being involved in the
formation of the cap rock is also possible

Cross section through a multi-reservoir salt dome oilfield

(Esperson dome, Texas), showing fragmentation by normal
faults of sediments overlying salt core.

Bay Marchand field, Southern Luisiana. Both salt and shales

are diapiric, forming large convex trap. M-1 is in nonconvex
trapping position. M-5 sand is in non-convex, stratigraphic
trap position (SE) and in nonconvex, structural (fault) trap
position (NW).

Structure of the Gabon Basin, West Africa a coastal pullapart basin invaded by salt domes

Cross section through Hassi RMel gas field, Algeria. Trap

formed by horst-like uplift of Precambrian basement.
Reservoir rocks are Lower Triassic sandstones; seal is
Triassic salt and anhydrite.

Reef Carbonates
Carbonates thickening in the form of mounds,
build-ups or reefs form extremely prolific
petroleum traps in several parts of the world

Bioherm organic carbonate deposit covering a

limited area and occurs as a steep-sided mass

Biostrome organic carbonate deposit of

relatively uniform thickness laid down over a wider
area

Organic reef reservoir, Devonian of Rainbow area, northern

Alberta, Canada. Pinnacle reef, shallow bank phase. Reef
grows upwards from narrow base (2 km wide or less),
around core of stromatoporids.

Organic reef reservoir, Devonian of Rainbow area, northern

Alberta, Canada. Atoll reef, lagoon bank phase. Broader
base from beginning (~3 km wide or more). Reserves from
Rainbow Member Pools: 1.3 billion barrel of oil in place

Depositional environments where carbonates are deposited

Reef Carbonates (Contd)

Fossil organic-reefs range in age from PreCambrian to Tertiary but have their principal
developments in Paleozoic Mesozoic rocks

Reefs may be extending laterally for several

hundred km and with a thickness of hundreds of
feet

Profile across typical Bahama bank (after friedman and

Sanders)

Reef Carbonates (Contd)

Captain reef complex in Permian Guadalupe
series of West Texas and New Mexico is >650 km
long and has a maximum thickness of 1,200'

Single well in the Golden Lane of Mexico

produces oil 260,000 barrels/day

Intisar reef in Libya (an oval bioherm ~5 km in

greatest dimensions; 1,200' thick oil pay is 959'
thick) contained at least 2 billion barrels of oil in
place before the production began in 1968

Reef Carbonates (Contd)

Various types of reefs
Coral reefs (also made up of many other
organisms)

Fringing reefs extended out from the shores of

islands or the mainland

Barrier reefs separated from land by a channel

or lagoon (may be many miles wide)

Atolls (Pinnacle reefs) occurs as the form of a

ring of reef with a central lagoon

Reef Carbonates (Contd)

Growth rate of the reef varies considerably (In Southern
Florida reef growth rate is 1.5 3.0' / year)
Rapid sinking of the sea floor encourages the upward
growth

Stable sea level encourages the outward growth, as does a

slowly rising sea floor

Associated with high initial porosity and gets modified later

by process of solution, cementation, precipitation, and
replacement

The pores are filled with calcium sulfate, sodium chloride

giving rise to plugged carbonate sediments

Diagram of Reef complex in the Persian Gulf (after

Friedman)

Geological cross section through the North Alberta Basin,

showing the temporal and spatial distribution of Devonian
Reefs

Hydrodynamic influences
Inclined fluid contacts have been attributed to
water flow, or lateral changes in pore sizes in the
reservoir rocks

The slope of the oil/water contact is given by

dz / dl = dh ( w) / dl ( w o)

Slope of the fluid contact depends on the

difference in density of the two fluids in contact

Hydrodynamic influences (Contd)

For a fixed value of the flowing pressure
gradient, the slope will be less for a gas/water
contact than for an oil/water contact

In an anticline with uniform properties under

hydrostatic condition both gas/oil and oil/water
contacts will be horizontal

Low rate of the water flow will distort the oil mass,
giving an inclined oil/water contact, but the gas/oil
contact will remain horizontal

Hydrodynamic influences (Contd)

At a higher flowing pressure gradient in the water
the oil will be displaced more, with steepening of
the oil/water contact and forming the less steeper
gas/water contact

Further increase in the flowing pressure gradient,

oil mass will be separated from the gas mass both
having steeper fluid contacts

Anticlines must have a suitable profile for the oil

to remain in it; cap rock-reservoir rock boundary
must locally be steeper than the hydrocarbon-water
boundary

Hydrodynamic influences (Contd)

Under suitable condition oil may be trapped
hydrodynamically in the flank region of the
anticline leaving the crestal part filled with water

Displacement of all of the HC from the crestal

area is obviously more likely for an under saturated
accumulation than for one with a free gas cap

O/W contact is steeper in the low permeability

rock