Translating bumblebee dialect…
Abstract The deeper northeastern half of the Paradox Basin adjacent to Uncompahgre Uplift in Colorado and Utah has been the focus of recent attention due to significant emerging gas plays within the Pennsylvanian petroleum system. Play analysis benefits from a renewed look at the geological history of the area to assess the generation, migration and hydrocarbon accumulation history of the associated petroleum system. Past investigations have examined source rocks (Hite et al., 1984) and basin-wide burial and thermal histories (Nuccio and Condon, 1996). This study expands on previous work, focusing primarily on the petroleum system of Pennsylvanian strata within the deep Fold and Fault Belt (DFFB), a northwest- to southeast-trending zone of complex salt deformation and thick Pennsylvanian to Triassic strata southwest of the Uncompahgre Uplift. Thermal maturity and timing of generation and expulsion is established via burial history modeling of high resolution stratigraphic data. Onset of hydrocarbon generation is highly variable for the organic-rich source rocks within the Pennsylvanian strata, but generally started earlier closest to the Uncompahgre Uplift (as early as Late Pennsylvanian) and migrated progressively westward away from the Uncompahgre Uplift. Earliest hydrocarbon expulsion began during the Early Permian and as late as the Early Cretaceous within the DFFB. Late generation and expulsion occurred during the Late Cretaceous to Miocene along the southwestern margin of the DFFB. Uplift of the Colorado Plateau removed as much as 9,000 feet of overburden since the Late Miocene and modeling indicates that this uplift was sufficient to stop generation and expulsion in the Paradox Basin, including the DFFB. The influence of thick Pennsylvanian to Triassic siliciclastic deposition and contemporaneous salt movement on the thermal history and burial history is important and helps explain the temporal variability of the petroleum system.
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