Characterization of mass transport deposit using seismic attributes: Spraberry Formation, Midland Basin, West Texas

Abstract

The Leonardian Series of the structurally complex Permian basin had shelf to open marine depositional environment with many sedimentary features. Previous studies show the sediments were deposited as a large basin-floor submarine fan system and are commonly interpreted as deposits of turbidity currents. We interpreted the source of sediments coming in from the North and pro-grading into the basin as a gravity flow mass transport deposit. The following study investigates the nature and cause of this mass transport deposit within the Spraberry Formation and understand its compressional architecture. The feature mapped in the study area is 3.8 miles wide and extends 10.4 miles respectively. Seismic attributes such as a coherence and structural curvature are used to map the discontinuous mass transport deposit along with the lateral extent of the feature.

Progradational slope architecture and sediment distribution in outcrops of the mixed carbonate-siliciclastic Bone Spring Formation, Permian Basin, west Texas

“…The lack of large-scale, thick (>20 m) MTDs in the study area suggests that most were sourced from the steep (~15°) upper slope, bypassing the mid-slope, to be deposited distally at the toe-of-slope or farther into the basin. Similar slope segmentation with large-scale MTDs has been documented in both the Permian Basin (Saller et al, 1989;Montgomery, 1997a;Allen et al, 2013;Nance and Rowe, 2015;Bhatnagar et al, 2018;Hurd et al, 2018, Schwartz et al, 2018 and in other carbonate slope systems (De Blasio et al, 2005;Moscardelli and Wood, 2008;Mazzanti and De Blasio, 2010;Janson et al, 2011;Mulder et al, 2012;Dakin et al, 2013;Principaud et al, 2015;Cardona et al, 2016;Moscardelli and Wood, 2016). Headwall scarps from sediment evacuation on carbonate slopes are commonly steep (~15°; Mulder et al, 2012;Jo et al, 2015;Principaud et al, 2015), consistent with angles observed in the study area (e.g., Figs.…”

“…We interpret slope detachment surfaces as representing evacuation scars of subaqueous mass failure of the margin. Relief along the SDSs suggests that failures were quite large (tens to hundreds of meters of sediment height), consistent with observations of large MTD deposits from the basinal Permian Basin (Saller et al, 1989;Allen et al, 2013;Bhatnagar et al, 2018). The lack of large-scale, thick (>20 m) MTDs in the study area suggests that most were sourced from the steep (~15°) upper slope, bypassing the mid-slope, to be deposited distally at the toe-of-slope or farther into the basin.…”

“…Slope detachment surfaces of the Bone Spring represent large volumes of missing rock on the slope. MTDs associated with these evacuation surfaces either initiated in this area or bypassed it, and were likely deposited at the toe-of-slope and in the basin (Saller et al, 1989;Montgomery, 1997a;Allen et al, 2013;Nance and Rowe, 2015;Bhatnagar et al, 2018;Hurd et al, 2018;Schwartz et al, 2018). Additionally, flow transformation (Fisher, 1983;Haughton et al, 2009;Talling et al, 2012) of MTDs along the sediment routing system may be reflected in the abundance of hybrid event beds documented in the distal Delaware basin (Driskill et al, 2018;Kvale et al, 2020).…”

“…Sequence stratigraphic concepts are commonly used to predict facies from seismic-scale geometries (Mitchum et al, 1977;Vail, 1987). However, allogenic forcing is often overly relied upon without considering the effects of autogenic forcing and along-strike variability (see discussion in Burgess, 2016), resulting in over-simplified stratigraphic "pancake" models for basin fill (e.g., a local sand body interpreted to represent a correlatable lowstand sand "sheet" across a basin; Saller et al, 1989;Montgomery, 1997b;Nance and Rowe, 2015;Crosby et al, 2018;Bhatnagar et al, 2018;Schwartz et al, 2018). In reality, as many studies have shown, sediment supply, accommodation, along-strike variability, and other factors may affect the regional and local development of both low-order and higherorder systems tracts and sequences (Covault et al, 2007;Burgess, 2016;Madof et al, 2016;Harris et al, 2018;Trower et al, 2018;Chiarella et al, 2019).…”

Characterization of the Rapanui mass‐transport deposit and the basal shear zone: Mount Messenger Formation, Taranaki Basin, New Zealand

“…In the past decades, the roles that MTCs/MTDs can play in the petroleum system have been broadly recognized; MTDs can act as reservoirs (Sawyer et al., ; Shanmugam, ; Allen et al., ; Arfai et al., ; Bhatnagar et al., ; Li et al., ), seals (Algar et al., ; Cardona et al., ) or source elements (Tanavsuu‐Milkeviciene & Sarg, ; Johnson et al., ). Numerous challenges still exist regarding the prediction of sealing capacity of MTDs that cannot be resolved only with seismic data (Aplin & Macquaker, ; Cardona et al., ).…”