Rocky Mountain Carbonate Reservoirs: A Core Workshop

This core workshop was organized to give geologists from across the country and around the world the opportunity to see a wide variety of carbonate reservoirs as well as some carbonate source rocks from the Rocky Mountain region. Cores displayed at the workshop range in age from Cambrian to Cretaceous and come from a number of the major oil-producing basins in the Rocky Mountains. Depositional facies represented in the cores range from sabkhas and tidal flats through algal and coral buildups to relatively deep water chalks. Dolomite and evaporite minerals are important in approximately half the cores described; the others are dominantly limestone. Porosity of many different types is discussed. Diagenesis, or lack of it, has played a major role in forming virtually all the reservoirs. Thus, the workshop offers the chance to observe and study a wide variety of depositional and diagenetic textures in a number of economically important rock units.