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Matrix permeability of the Mission Canyon


Formation is low—from 1 to 7 mD—throughout the Williston basin. However, in the Red Wing Creek field, impact-induced porosity and perme- ability enable relatively high flow rates. Productive wells are concentrated in a 1-mi2 [2.6-km2] area on the central uplift. The earlier Shell wells penetrated the structure on the flank of the uplift and in the annular crater. Interpretation of a 3D seismic dataset and


selected attributes, such as dip azimuth, coher- ency and curvature, allows for detailed mapping of the faults and deformed strata (right).31 To date, this field has produced 16.6 million


bbl [2.6 million m3] of oil and 25 Bcf [700 million m3] of gas from 26 wells—22 are still producing. It is estimated that the brecciated central uplift contains 130 million bbl [21 million m3] of oil, of which 70 million bbl [11 million m3] are recover- able. Natural gas reserves are estimated at 100 Bcf. True Oil geologists and researchers at the University of Colorado in Boulder, USA, are using seismic data to develop a geologic model for use in reservoir simulation.


Big Impact The impact that has drawn the most attention in the past 25 years is the collision of the Chicxulub impactor with what is now the Mexican Yucatán Peninsula. Though a great deal of controversy surrounds the date, size and environmental rami- fications of this impact, the observations point to a truly cataclysmic event. Interest in this structure dates to before the


1950s, when detection of a circular gravity low led Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) to conduct a drilling program.32


Throughout the 1970s several


23. Castaño JR, Clement JH, Kuykendall MD and Sharpton VL: “Source-Rock Potential of Impact Craters,” in Johnson KS and Campbell JA (eds): Ames Structure in Northwest Oklahoma and Similar Features: Origin and Petroleum Production (1995 Symposium). Norman, Oklahoma: Oklahoma Geological Survey, Circular 100 (1997): 100–103.


24. Curtiss DK and Wavrek DA: “The Oil Creek-Arbuckle (!) Petroleum System, Major County, Oklahoma,” in Johnson KS and Campbell JA (eds): Ames Structure in Northwest Oklahoma and Similar Features: Origin and Petroleum Production (1995 Symposium). Norman, Oklahoma: Oklahoma Geological Survey, Circular 100 (1997): 240–258.


For more on petroleum system modeling: Al-Hajeri MM, Al Saeed M, Derks J, Fuchs T, Hantschel T, Kauerauf A, Neumaier M, Schenk O, Swientek O, Tessen N, Welte D, Wygrala B, Kornpihl D and Peters K: “Basin and Petroleum System Modeling,” Oilfield Review 21, no. 2 (Summer 2009): 14–29.


25. Vardi N: “The Last American Wildcatter,” Forbes (February 2, 2009), http://www.forbes.com/ forbes/2009/0202/066.html (accessed September 7, 2009).


26. Sawatzky HB: “Astroblemes in Williston Basin,” AAPG Bulletin 59, no. 4 (April 1975): 694–710.


> Red Wing Creek impact structure seismic data. Interpretation of 3D seismic data reveals the subsurface signature of the Red Wing Creek crater. Depth of the Mission Canyon Formation is color coded, from red (shallow) to blue and purple (deep). Extracted 2D sections from the 3D survey form the background.


wells were drilled, some to 3,000 m or more, but none encountered hydrocarbons, nor were the results made public at the time. In the late 1970s, scientists investigating sed-


iments deposited at the end of the Cretaceous period and before the beginning of the Tertiary, called the K-T boundary, found extremely large concentrations of iridium [Ir] and other plati- num-group elements in a thin layer of clay that marks this boundary in Italy.33


Based on extrater-


restrial ratios of the platinum-group elements, they proposed that the high-concentration layer


27. Gerhard LC, Anderson SB, Lefever JA and Carlson CG: “Geological Development, Origin, and Energy Mineral Resources of Williston Basin, North Dakota,” AAPG Bulletin 66, no. 8 (August 1982): 989–1020.


28. Gerhard LC, Anderson SB and Fischer DW: “Petroleum Geology of the Williston Basin,” in Leighton MW, Kolata DR, Oltz DT and Eidel JJ (eds): Interior Cratonic Basins. Tulsa: The American Association of Petroleum Geologists, AAPG Memoir 51 (1990): 507–559.


29. Grieve, reference 8.


30. Koeberl C, Reimold WU and Brandt D: “Red Wing Creek Structure, North Dakota: Petrographical and Geochemical Studies, and Confirmation of Impact Origin,” Meteoritics & Planetary Science 31 (1996): 335–342.


31. Huang C, Herber B, Barton R, Weimer P, Jiang S and Hammon S: “3-D Interpretation of a Meteorite Impact Field, Red Wing Creek Field, Williston Basin, Western North Dakota,” presented at the AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, Denver, June 7–10, 2009, http://www.searchanddiscovery.net/abstracts/ html/2009/annual/abstracts/huang.htm (accessed October 12, 2009).


Friedman B: “Red Wing Data Has Big Impact,” AAPG Explorer (April 2009), http://www.aapg.org/ explorer/2009/04apr/redwing0409.cfm (accessed September 6, 2009).


was deposited there and at several other locales around the globe 65 million years ago following an impact somewhere on Earth of an asteroid 10 km [6 mi] in diameter, which also caused mass extinction of the dinosaurs and other life forms.34 Subsequently, other workers discovered grains of shocked quartz and other shocked minerals, stishovite and impact diamonds in K-T boundary deposits elsewhere in the world, corroborating the notion of an immense impact with widely dis- persed ejecta.35


Oilfield Review Autumn 09 Impact Fig. 15


32. Cornejo-Toledo A and Hernandez-Osuna A: “Las anomalias gravimetricas en la cuenca salina del istmo, planicie costera de Tabasco, Campeche y Peninsula de Yucatan,” Boletín de la Asociación Mexicana de Geólogos Petroleros 2 (1950): 453–460, as cited in Stoffler D: “Chicxulub Scientific Drilling Project (CSDP),” http://www.museum.hu-berlin.de/min/forsch/csdp.html (accessed October 9, 2009).


ORAUT09-Impact Fig. 15


33. In the Earth’s crust, Ir concentration averages 0.001 ppm; in meteorites, the average is at least 500 times greater, or 0.5 ppm.


34. Alvarez LW, Alvarez W, Asaro F and Michel HV: “Extraterrestrial Cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction,” Science 208, no. 4448 (June 6, 1980): 1095–1108.


35. Bohor B, Foord EE, Modreski PJ and Triplehorn DM: ”Mineralogic Evidence for an Impact Event at the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary,” Science 224, no. 4651 (May 25, 1984): 867–869.


McHone JF, Nieman RA, Lewis CF and Yates AM: “Stishovite at the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary, Raton, New Mexico,” Science 243, no. 4895 (March 3, 1989): 1182–1184.


Carlisle DB and Braman DR: “Nanometre-Size Diamonds in the Cretaceous/Tertiary Boundary Clay of Alberta,” Nature 352, no. 6337 (August 22, 1991): 708–709.


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