Hackberry oil and gas fields in southeast Texas: channel/fan depositional systems and structural controls
Deep-water sandstones of the Hackberry Formation (Oligocene) host significant quantities of oil and gas. They remain one of the most important deep exploration targets in southeastern-most Texas; new fields producing from the Hackberry have been discovered at a steady rate from 1946 to the present. The Hackberry contains two hydrocarbon plays. The updip play is relatively shallow, oil-rich, and lies near the updip limit of deep-water deposition. The downdip play is gas rich and generally geopressured. The reservoirs lie either within or on the flanks of major channel systems and are often bounded updip by small growth faults. The Hackberry Formation is a wedge of sand and shale with bathyal fauna that separates upper Frio sandstone and shale from middle and lower Frio shale and sand. The main sandstone lies atop a channeled unconformity at the base of the formation. Topmost are proximal to medial fan deposits with slightly meandering channels and overbank turbidites. This sequence suggests that the Hackberry sands were laid down by an aggrading, onlapping submarine canyon-fan complex that eroded headward into the contemporaneous Frio barrier bar-strand plain. The early structural history of the area is obscure, but Vicksburg-age faulting associated with continental slope sedimentation is possible. Small growth faults displace the Hackberry section less than 500 ft (150 m) and extend upward into the Miocene strata. Isopach and isolith maps indicate that the Orange, Port Neches, and Fannett salt domes were active uplifts during Frio and Anahuac deposition. Near Spindletop dome, however, only a north-south trending salt-cored ridge was present.
- Research Organization:
- Bur. Econ. Geology, Austin, TX
- OSTI ID:
- 6326645
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-8304200-
- Journal Information:
- Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol., Bull.; (United States), Vol. 67:3; Conference: Annual AAPG/SEPM/EMD/DPA convention, Dallas, TX, USA, 17 Apr 1983
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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