The Siliciclastic Upper Cretaceous Play of Eastern Mississippi Canyon
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Published:December 01, 2016
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CiteCitation
Andrew Harding, Luke Walker, Steve Ehlinger, Tim Chapman, 2016. "The Siliciclastic Upper Cretaceous Play of Eastern Mississippi Canyon", Mesozoic of the Gulf Rim and Beyond: New Progress in Science and Exploration of the Gulf of Mexico Basin, Christopher M. Lowery, John W. Snedden, Norman C. Rosen
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Abstract
The eastern Mississippi Canyon area has been largely a Miocene oil and gas province in which recent discoveries in the Jurassic Norphlet Formation have been made. This paper focuses on a nascent Cretaceous play targeting the eastern Tuscaloosa fan comprised of large symmetric and asymmetric structures created by an expulsion-rollover system in the pre-Miocene interval. The top of the Cretaceous interval is found between 15,000’ and 27,000’, is up to 15,000’ thick, and is underlain by a mature Tithonian source rock. The play extends downdip from the Cretaceous shelf edge and the reservoir is interpreted to be the equivalent of the Tuscaloosa Formation of onshore South Louisiana. This paper will examine the idea that the central Cretaceous basin is in the optimal zone for the trend of appropriate subsurface temperatures, depth, and significantly expanded reservoir section in the Upper and Lower Cretaceous intervals.
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Contents
Mesozoic of the Gulf Rim and Beyond: New Progress in Science and Exploration of the Gulf of Mexico Basin

GeoRef
- Atlantic Ocean
- basins
- chemically precipitated rocks
- Cretaceous
- depth
- evaporites
- geophysical profiles
- geophysical surveys
- Gulf of Mexico
- Jurassic
- marine environment
- maturity
- Mesozoic
- Mississippi Canyon
- North Atlantic
- oil and gas fields
- petroleum
- petroleum exploration
- reservoir rocks
- salt
- sedimentary rocks
- seismic profiles
- shelf environment
- siliciclastics
- source rocks
- surveys
- temperature
- Tithonian
- Upper Cretaceous
- Upper Jurassic