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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Mesozoic folds, fossil fields, and future finds

Conference ·
OSTI ID:6127831
Drilling and surface geologic mapping have shown that pre-Tertiary, post-Triassic folds and upthrusted anticlines in an eastern Nevada foldbelt have accumulated major oil columns. This Mesozoic foldbelt involves a Cambrian through Triassic section, which has hundreds of feet of porosity in Ordovician sandstones, Silurian and Devonian carbonates, and Mississippian sandstones. In addition to the Devonian Pilot and Mississippian Chainman Shales, source rocks are found in Cambrian and Ordovician shales and in some Paleozoic carbonates. The occurrence of live and dead oil shows in hundreds of vertical feet of porosity in wells drilled on several of these Mesozoic structures is interpreted as evidence that these structures were giant oil fields prior to being breached by Tertiary Basin and Range extensional faulting, which allowed vertical hydrocarbon leakage.
OSTI ID:
6127831
Report Number(s):
CONF-880301-
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English