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Sedimentology, Ichnology, Sequence Stratigraphy, and Petrography of the Falher F Unit, Wapiti Area, Northwestern Alberta
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- Author / Creator
- Adani, Nabilah
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The lower Albian (Cretaceous) Falher F submember of the Spirit River Formation in the Wapiti area consists of four stacked coarsening-upward successions of northward prograding strandplain to wave-dominated delta deposits. Routine core analyses revealed that four facies associations can be identified within the study interval, which reflect a shoaling-upward trend from storm-dominated shoreface, wave-dominated shoreface, brackish embayment, to coastal plain settings deposited adjacent to wave-dominated delta. Integration with geophysical well logs enabled the construction of the local paleogeographic evolution of various depositional environments within each parasequence in the study area, which can be explained using a sequence stratigraphic model.The complexity of the microscale reservoir characteristics within the tight sandstone intervals is largely due to the abundance of chert clasts and grains as well as interstitial allogenic and authigenic components, which contribute to the challenges related to the sandstone drillability and hydrocarbon storability, respectively. In this study, a petrographic approach was primarily employed to understand the relative distribution of the chert content and the diagenetic events within the tight sandstone units. The resulting reservoir characteristics can then be explained in reference to the palaeogeographic framework.This study shows that changes in the chert-controlled drillability of the Falher F tight sandstone correspond to variations in depositional energy and settings. In terms of hydrocarbon storability, secondary porosities such as dissolution, microfractures, and other micropores that followed the pore-occluding diagenetic events are primarily responsible for retaining the porosity of the unit.
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- Subjects / Keywords
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- Graduation date
- Spring 2019
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Master of Science
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- License
- Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.