BH Geology Course:

Clastic Sedimentology & Interpretation of

Depositional Systems
May 2 - 14, 2004

BH Geology – Clastic Sedimentology

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This course teaches participants how to integrate stratigraphic and
sedimentologic data from a variety of sources to add value to Borehole
Image interpretation and contribute to the reservoir characterization
process. The course utilizes outcrops, cores, logs and borehole image
logs to teach the concepts and methodologies. The fluvio-deltaic
strata of the Upper Cretaceous Ferron Sandstone in central Utah offers
a unique opportunity to accomplish this task. The outcrops are superb
and include a wide variety of fluvio-deltaic facies. A series of five core
holes drilled at 0.25 mi spacing immediately behind the excellent
outcrops in Muddy Creek Canyon afford the opportunity to directly
compare outcrops and cores. FMS logs were run by Schlumberger in
two cored holes drilled immediately to the north by University of Utah
Research Institute. Taken together, these constitute a unique data set.

The outcrop, core examination and correlations exercise portions of

the course will be taught by Thomas A. Ryer. Tom is an expert on the
Cretaceous System in the Western Interior. He is an AAPG field
seminar leader and much of the material in this course is derived from
his AAPG Clastic Reservoir Facies field seminar.

Photo: Field party at Ferron outcrops in Muddy Creek Canyon.

General Information

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The weather in central and southern Utah in early May is usually
gorgeous, with daytime highs in the 70’s or 80’s F (21–30 C). Long
pants, T-shirt and sweatshirt with a light jacket are the usual field
attire this time of year. There is, however, a chance of a late-Spring
storm passing across the Colorado Plateau in April. These storms
typically bring wet snow mixed with rain to the Ferron outcrops. To be
prepared for this possibility, bring nylon wind pants, a warm sweater, a
nylon jacket, a hat that will cover your ears, and gloves. A rain suit or
long nylon raincoat is a good addition.

There will be lengthy hikes and lots of scrambling over rough terrain,
so sturdy hiking shoes or boots are a must. Also bring a daypack
to carry your camera, field notes, beverages, clothing, etc. We'll be
spending long days in the field with little or no opportunity to get to
stores, so be sure to bring all of the film you plan to use along with
you. You'll definitely want to have your hands free for climbing at
some of the outcrops. About climbing -- be forewarned that there is a
considerable amount of climbing on steep outcrops and through
sandstone ledges. I strongly recommend that you bring a pair of
binoculars – they are the single most important piece of field
equipment for this trip. I also recommend you bring a rock hammer
and a hand lens, but these are not essential. Bring an alarm clock --
the motel we'll stay at does not always provide reliable wake-up
service.

We will be traveling in the field by car. If possible, please bring

your things in a soft-sided piece of luggage, preferably a duffle bag
(hard-sided suitcases are considerably more difficult to pack into
the vehicles).
For the FMI interpretation exercise (last two days) we will create an
image database, which will contain digital outcrop photographs that
we take ourselves as well as digital core photographs that we
purchase from the Utah Geological Survey.
Bring your standard OpsPack laptop with locking cable and adaptor
for 120VAC. Every participant will be provided with a hard disk that
fits into his/her standard Dell OpsPack laptop with LINUX, ORACLE
and GeoFrame installed. This will allow us to combine GeoFrame
training in conjunction with outcrop work and lectures. We will also
try to measure sections and create a digital lithology logs and use
the data to construct a 3-D reservoir model.

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 Itinerary
Sunday, March 30 - Travel Individually to Salt Lake City

Meet informally in evening for introductions. Reservations at the Salt

Lake City Sky Harbour hotel will be made for you beginning the night
of March 30 upon your registration for the course.

Day 1, Monday, March 31 – Lectures, Travel to Salina, Braided

Stream Deposits of Indianola Group at Chicken Creek

AM -- Lectures
 Cretaceous paleotectonics and paleogeography of North America
 Plate tectonics and foreland basin subsidence patterns
 Introduction to fluvio-deltaic facies
 Introduction to sequence stratigraphy, with emphasis on
parasequences and parasequence sets

PM -- Outcrops of the Indianola Group at Chicken Creek represent the

aprons of coarse-grained alluvial material that accumulated
immediately adjacent to the thrusted mountain fronts of the Sevier
Orogenic Belt.

Days 2 and 3, Tuesday and Wednesday, April 1-2 - Ferron

Transect

Lecture: Stratigraphy, facies and depositional history of the Upper

Cretaceous Ferron Sandstone, central Utah.

The group will complete a seaward-to-landward transect across a part

of the fluvio-deltaic deposits of the Ferron Sandstone Member. The
criteria for distinguishing a variety of facies on outcrop and in core will
be discussed and the relative positions of these facies within individual
transgressive-regressive cycles will be examined.

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Photo: Outcrops of the upper part of the Ferron Sandstone at Dry Wash. Unit
in the foreground includes a shoreface cut by a tidal channel deposit.

FIELD STOPS:

1. Delta-front sandstone successions at Dry Wash.

2. Delta-front, delta-plain and transgressive lag strata in Miller
Canyon; cores of lower delta front and transgressive lag deposits.
3. Erosional relief on transgressive surface of erosion and facies
relationships in landward pinch-out of Kf-4, “Bear Gulch” and Coal
Cliffs.
4. Exposures and cores of delta-plain strata at "Cowboy Canyon", a
tributary to Quitchupah Canyon.

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Day 4, Thursday, April 3 – Indian Canyon

Kf-1, the oldest unit of the Ferron, includes a seaward-stepping series

of parasequences in the Willow Springs Wash-Indian Canyon area.
Both wave-dominated and river-dominated deltaic shoreline deposits
are present. These outcrops afford the opportunity to examine the
concept of the marine flooding surface, and to clearly observe how
such surfaces bound and define parasequences. Walking out the
lateral facies variations reveals how the depositional system changes
from wave- to river-dominated, the reservoir characteristics of these
facies, and how they might be interpreted, correlated and mapped in
the subsurface.

Stratigraphy of Kf-1 in the Willow

Springs Wash-Indian Canyon area and,
below, channel belts and delta lobes
mapped in unit Kf-1-IC-d

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Day 5, Friday, April 4 - Ferron Sandstone in Northern Part of
Muddy Creek Canyon

Lecture: Review of field observations and analysis of parasequence-level

architecture of Kf-1 in Indian Canyon.

The day will be spent hiking along the western edge of the canyon of Muddy
Creek, where the anatomy of units Kf-5, Kf-6 and Kf-7 will be examined in
detail. Facies to be studied interval include the shoreface and equivalent
lagoonal and alluvial-plain strata. A practical exercise focuses on assessing
geologic risk: what is predictable and what is not?

Photo: Landward pinch-out of Kf-6 in Muddy Creek Canyon.

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Days 6 and 7, Saturday and Sunday, April 5 and 6 –
Parasequences of Kf-2 in Southern Part of Muddy Creek
Canyon

Lectures:
 Evaluating uncertainty in reservoir quality, shoreface and channel belt
strata: “Muddy Creek Sandstone” discovery.
 Review of observations in southern part of Muddy Creek Canyon:
parasequences of Kf-2.

Both river- and wave-dominated delta-front deposits are well represented in

four parasequences of Kf-2 in the southern part of Muddy Creek canyon. All
four parasequences have been analyzed in detail as part of study funded by
BP Exploration, Anchorage. BP believes that these units are good analogs for
basal Ivishak Formation reservoirs in Prudhoe Bay field.

Five cores were cut from these units immediately west of the canyon in 1992
and are available for study in the Utah Geological Survey Library in Salt Lake
City. The core holes are located about a quarter mile apart, spacing that
approximates that of wells in a field developed on 40-acre spacing. Gamma-
ray and neutron density logs were run in the coreholes from TD to surface
and the logs are available for our use.

Aerial view of Muddy

Creek Canyon, looking
southward. Ferron strata
will be examined in detail
over the entire length of
the canyon during days 5
through 7 of the trip.

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Prior to going into the southern part of Muddy Creek Canyon, the group will
correlate the relevant portions of the logs with the goal of recognizing
parasequences and of determining whether river- and wave-dominated units
can be distinguishing on the basis of log character alone. Participants will be
asked to predict the relationships on the outcrops based on their
interpretations of the subsurface data.

The units of interest extend over a

distance of about 2 miles and are very
well exposed on both sides of the
canyon. The group will focus on
outcrops on the western side: what we
see close up can be compared to
larger-scale features apparent on the
eastern wall of the canyon.

Groups of two or three will measure

stratigraphic sections through the
strata of Kf-2, defining lithologies,
facies and meaningful stratigraphic
surfaces. These will later be compared
to the cores.

After completing the work in the field

on Sunday, the group will drive to Salt
Lake City.

Photo: Five 200-foot cores were

cut from the lower part of the
Ferron immediately behind the
outcrops using a truck-mounted rig.

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Day 8, Monday, April 7 - Core Workshop, UGS Core Library

Monday will be spent at the Utah Geological Survey Core Library in Salt Lake
City. Sufficient table space is available to lay out all five of the Muddy Creek
Cores, which total about 1,000 feet. Criteria for recognition of facies studied
during the field trip will be applied to interpreting the cores: they will allow
us to recognize the stratigraphic units examined in Muddy Creek Canyon.
The group will combine the outcrop, core, and log data to produce a model of
the stratigraphy and reservoir characteristics of these units and to interpret
their depositional histories.

Photo: Working with the Muddy Creek Ferron

cores at the UGS Core Library.

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FMS images were acquired by Schlumberger in two core holes drilled
to the west of Muddy Creek Canyon by the University of Utah Research
Institute. The entire Ferron section was drilled, cored and logged.
Although the cores will not be available, the holes are located close to
the Muddy Canyon core holes and the same facies are represented.

The group will review the FMS

images with the goal of
determining:
 Which of the facies
observed on outcrop can be
distinguished on the basis
of the borehole images?
 If two or more facies cannot
be distinguished, what
additional borehole
information might facilitate
distinguishing them?
 How do paleocurrent
directionscompiled from
FMS data compare to what
was observed on outcrop?
 For the final borehole image
exercise, however, we will
use FMI images of superior
quality logged in an
equivalent sequence.

FMS image of the Ferron Sandstone

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Days 9 and 10, Tuesday and Wednesday, April 8-9 – Correlation
Exercise.

Lectures:
 Facies and wireline log responses of fluvio-deltaic facies.
 Depositional setting, Fall River Formation, Powder River Basin,
Wyoming
 Stratigraphy, facies and trapping of hydrocarbons, Coyote Creek-
Miller Creek trend, Fall River Formation, Powder River Basin (at
conclusion of exercise).

Approximately 300 wireline logs

from the Fall River Formation will
be used to distinguish and map
facies in fluvio-deltaic strata in
the Coyote Creek-Miller Creek
trend, which produces oil from a
series of stratigraphic traps in the
eastern part of the Powder River
Basin, Wyoming. Core photos guide the facies interpretation. The
correlation exercise demonstrates the pitfalls involved in attempting to
make facies interpretations on individual wells and emphasizes the
importance of using a multi-well approach.

Representative wireline logs of the Fall

River Formation showing facies and
important stratigraphic surfaces. Log
signatures will be related to facies
utilizing core photographs. Facies will be
mapped and relationships between facies
and production will be investigated.

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Day 11, 12 Thursday and Friday, April 10, 11 – FMI
Interpretation

A full sedimentological interpretation will be conducted using FMI logs

through strata comprising fluvio-deltaic facies studied in the Ferron.
The group will make full use of the photographic and borehole image
database created during the course to:
 Import and display of outcrop photos in BORVIEW as a visual aid
to interpretation.
 Create lithologs in BORVIEW using the measured Ferron sections.

Saturday, April 12 – Individual travel from Salt Lake City to

Home.

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