Chemostrat

 

 

 

Western Sedimentary Basin - Canada

(1) The Basal Quartz (BQ), is part of the Mannville Formation, one of the largest potential hydrocarbon reservoirs in North America.

(2) In order to exploit this low accommodation fluvial succession it is vital to be able to regionally correlate the component fluvial systems. This is greatly hampered by the low accommodation, virtually barren nature of the unit. Repeated incision and deposition results in lithologically similar, but chronostratigraphically different sandstones (with radically different reservoir properties) commonly being juxtaposed..

(3) Changes in palaeo-climate and provenance, however, result in markedly different geochemical signatures for the component fluvial systems, thereby lending itself to chemostratigraphic characterisation.