Integrated petrophysical-seismic sequence stratigraphy of the mixed carbonate clastic sediment gravity flows of the Bone Spring Formation, New Mexico

Abstract

The Bone Spring Formation is one of the dominant oil and gas producing formations in the Permian Basin today. It is Leonardian in age and lies just below the Guadeloupian Brushy Canyon Formation in the Delaware Basin. Traditional production from these units comes from upslope carbonates on the slope and shelf margins of the Delaware Basin and the Northwest Shelf equivalents of the Bone Spring Formation, the Abo and Yeso Formations, along with up dip clastic pinch-outs. The majority of the production came from diagenetic, secondary porosity developed in carbonate debris flows and slump deposits derived from the shelf margin. New developments in drilling, production, and development technologies have allowed for a shift in primary target focus down dip into the basin. The Bone Spring Formation is presently the most active unconventional play in the Permian Basin today. Therefore, optimizing the sweet spots where extractable oil occurs by preservation in anoxic environments and where it is most brittle is critical to its economic exploitation. The sources and mechanics that drive the deposition in this environment are dynamic, switching between clastic and carbonate systems. This produces a heterogeneous deposit in the basin, both vertically and horizontally that makes it difficult to interpret in seismic away from core control. Global and regional sea-level changes also increase the complexity of the stratigraphy by vastly changing the shoreline and accommodation space, so the effects of this control must be interpreted to identify depositional trends. In-depth integrated analysis of well logs and seismic data reveals sequence stratigraphy that provides understanding of seismic data between wells that has significant implications for exploration.