CANCELLED CSPG20FT Virgelle Member at Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park, southern Alberta: Analogue for a Hydrocarbon Reservoir
Primary aim is to provide an overview of high-resolution stratigraphic relationships and depositional facies within Virgelle Member sandstones of the upper Cretaceous Milk River Formation in- and around Writing-on-Stone (WOS) Provincial Park, southern Alberta. Easily accessible outcrops are continuous over several kilometres, and offer three-dimensional exposures to illustrate relevant sedimentologic/stratigraphic linkages between offshore, estuarine and coastal plain environments across a range of scales (from metre-scale bedforms to successions 5-30 km apart). In this area the Virgelle Member is represented by storm-dominated lower shoreface to foreshore successions and sand-rich tidal bars and estuarine channel complexes, overlain by muddy paleosols of the Deadhorse Coulee Member.
The trip will visit localities in a west-to-east transect, from Buckley Coulee, near Sweetgrass, Montana (about 30 km W of WOS) to outcrops along the Milk river in Writing-on-Stone and the surrounding area. WOS outcrops serve to illustrate geometry/architecture of sedimentary bodies and the influence of lithofacies on key reservoir properties, e.g. permeability. Participants will be able to link the various outcrops through comparison of lithofacies and associated surfaces, and consider applicable depositional models. Insights can be applied to the challenge of constructing physical models through inter- and extrapolation of data in the subsurface.
Since we will briefly look at outcrops in the United States participants must bring valid documentation to enter/leave USA (passports and visa/entry permists if needed).
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Rudi Meyer – Department of Geoscience, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive N.W., Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada; meyer@geo.ucalgary.ca
Rudi Meyer earned his Ph.D. in clastic reservoir sedimentology from the University of Calgary in 1998. Prior to this he received his M.Sc. in structural geology at Michigan State University in 1983 and worked at Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., focusing on development geology in the Maracaibo basin. His current research interests are integrated reservoir characterization, progressive development of multi-directional pore geometry and permeability during diagenesis, and teaching and learning methods in geoscience.
