Spectral anomaly over Railroad Valley oil field, Nevada

Conference · Tue May 01 04:00:00 EDT 1990 · AAPG Bulletin (American Association of Petroleum Geologists); (USA)

OSTI ID:7091569

Feldman, S C ^[1]; Honey, F R ^[2]; Ballew, G I ^[3]

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1. Bechtel Corp., San Francisco, CA (USA)
2. Geoscan Pty Ltd., Perth (Australia)
3. Geodata Images, Carson City, NV (USA)

Oil was first discovered in Railroad Valley, south-central Nevada in 1954. Since that time, over 195 wells have been drilled and six oil fields have been found: Bacon Flat, Currant, Trap Spring, Eagle Springs, Grant Canyon and Kate Spring. Two wells in the Grant Canyon field had flows between 2,480 and 4,108 bbl/day in 1987 and may be the most prolific wells onshore in the continental US. Production in the Railroad Valley fields is from Oligocene volcanic and sedimentary rocks and Paleozoic carbonate formations. Traps are structural or structural and stratigraphic, and reservoir seals are indurated or clayey valley fill, weathered tuff, and shales in Tertiary sediments. Reservoir temperatures range between 95 and 309{degree}F. Previous workers have identified a statistically significant positive correlation between hydrocarbon microseepage and vegetation anomalies over the Railroad Valley oil fields with Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS) imagery. Several flight lines of high spectral and spatial resolution imagery in the visible, near infrared, shortwave infrared, and thermal infrared regions of the spectrum were flown with Geoscan's MkII Airborne Multispectral Scanner to determine if there was a mineralogical signature associated with the oil fields. The 24-channel scanner collected 8-m resolution picture elements over a swath of about 8 km. Image processing strategies were developed from a knowledge of the spectral curves of minerals in the laboratory. The results from processing Geoscans MkII data were also compared with those obtained from processing Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery over the same area. An 8 {times} 6 km carbonate and iron anomaly was detected on the processed MkII imagery over the Trap Spring oil field. This anomaly may be related to hot spring activity, reported by other workers, that has formed extensive calcite deposits along faults.

• OSTI ID: 7091569
• Report Number(s): CONF-900605--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: AAPG Bulletin (American Association of Petroleum Geologists); (USA) Journal Volume: 74:5
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
020200* -- Petroleum-- Reserves
Geology
& Exploration
58 GEOSCIENCES
580000 -- Geosciences
ALKALINE EARTH METAL COMPOUNDS
CALCITE
CALCIUM CARBONATES
CALCIUM COMPOUNDS
CARBON COMPOUNDS
CARBONATE MINERALS
CARBONATE ROCKS
CARBONATES
CENOZOIC ERA
EXPLORATION
FEDERAL REGION IX
GEOLOGIC AGES
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
GEOLOGIC FAULTS
GEOLOGIC FRACTURES
GEOLOGIC STRUCTURES
GEOLOGIC TRAPS
MINERAL RESOURCES
MINERALS
NEVADA
NORTH AMERICA
OIL FIELDS
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PERMEABILITY
PETROLEUM DEPOSITS
POROSITY
REMOTE SENSING
RESERVOIR ROCK
RESOURCES
ROCKS
SEDIMENTARY ROCKS
TERTIARY PERIOD
USA