Hydrocarbon source rock variability within the Austin Chalk and Eagle Ford Shale (Upper Cretaceous), East Texas, U.S.A.

Abstract

The Austin Chalk and Eagle Ford Shale are Upper Cretaceous deposits that extend across Texas from the northeast to southwest. These formations contain organic carbon enriched mudstones and chalks that were deposited during transgressions of the Cretaceous epeiric sea in North America. Recent workers in petroleum geochemistry have demonstrated that these organic enriched rocks possessed attributes common to oil source rocks. The present study of these Austin Chalk and Eagle Ford Shale rocks is from the perspective of organic petrology, and it augments the earlier geochemical work that documented source variability within units of these formations. As with the earlier work, the results of this study show that both formations contain intervals that are, when mature, capable of generating commercial quantities of liquid hydrocarbons. However, this work further revealed that Eagle Ford rocks not only exhibit greater or ganic carbon contents, but also have greater quantities of oil-prone kerogen (fluorescent amorphinite and exinite) when compared with rocks from the Austin Chalk. These source rock differences relate to levels or degrees of organic preservation. Dysaerobic to oxic depositional settings seem to be more characteristic of the Austin Chalk than of the Eagle Ford Shale. Such oxic environments do not consistently favor the preservation of organic matter. Usually, well-preserved kerogen forms under more anoxic conditions, such as those that occurred during deposition of some Eagle Ford units. These anoxic conditions suggest that the geographically more extensive Eagle Ford Shale is a more important source for oil than is the Austin Chalk.