Stratigraphy and Diagenesis of Sonora Canyon Deep-Water Sandstones, Val Verde Basin, Southwest Texas

Abstract

Several 'Canyon Sands' (Virgilian-Wolfcampian) intervals occur in the Val Verde basin, but the authors' study focuses on the Sonora Canyon, which is centered in western Sutton County. Sonora Canyon sandstones formed in continental-slope and basin-floor depositional systems basinward of a northwest-trending shelf margin. Well-log analysis revealed an overall wedgeshape geometry, thickening southwesterward from 500 ft at the shelf margin to 2000 ft where sandstone grades into basinal shale. The Sonora Canyon comprises coalesced submarine-fan systems forming a slope apron. Deltaic sandstones occur locally along the shelf margin, but mudstone covers most of the outer shelf. On the upper slope, channel-fill sandstones are discontinuous at 0.5- to 1.5-mi well spacing, and are enclosed in thick slope mudstones. Turbidites are the most prominent sedimentary features identified in Sonora Canyon cores. Channel-fill sandstones are massive to normally graded (Bouma divisions A and B) and are associated with slump and debris-flow facies. Sonora Canyon sandstones are mostly fine-grained to very fine-grained sublitharenites and litharenites. Chert, mudstone, sandstone, and low-rank metamorphic rock fragments are the predominant lithic grains. Major diagenetic events were (1) siderite and chlorite cementation, (2) mechanical compaction, (3) quartz cementation, (4) feldspar dissolution and illite and kaolinite precipitation, and (5) ankerite cementation. more » Intergranular porosity and permeability are higher in samples with abundant siderite cement because early precipitation of siderite inhibited later mechanical compaction and quartz cementation. « less