Stuart City Trend, Lower Cretaceous, South Texas: A Carbonate Shelf-Margin Model for Hydrocarbon Exploration

RI0078. Stuart City Trend, Lower Cretaceous, South Texas: A Carbonate Shelf-Margin Model for Hydrocarbon Exploration, by D. G. Bebout and R. G. Loucks. 80 p., 44 figs., 3 tables, 1974. To purchase this publication as a downloadable PDF, please order RI0078D.

Excerpted from the SUMMARY
Lower Cretaceous shallow-water carbonates accumulated on a broad shelf which completely encircled the Gulf of Mexico. Biogenic growth climaxed along the basinward edge, or shelf margin, where a complex of reefs, banks, bars, and islands developed. The sediments reached a total thickness of 2,000 to 2,500 feet; numerous deep wells ranging in total depth from 11,000 to 20,000 feet have resulted in the discovery of a few marginally productive gas fields.

The objectives of this study are: (I) to describe the depositional facies and environments present along this trend in order to provide a model for further hydrocarbon exploration along the Stuart City Trend and also in the deeper Sligo Trend, and (2) to identify diagenetic processes which relate to porosity distribution and might lead to the discovery of zones of higher porosity elsewhere along the trend.


Keywords: carbonates, Cretaceous, depositional environments, facies, Sligo Trend, Stuart City Trend, Texas


Citation
Bebout, D. G., and Loucks, R. G., 1974, Stuart City Trend, Lower Cretaceous, South Texas: A Carbonate Shelf-Margin Model for Hydrocarbon Exploration: The University of Texas at Austin, Bureau of Economic Geology, Report of Investigations No. 78, 80 p.