Types, structural evolution difference and petroleum geological significance of Cambrian–Ordovician carbonate platforms in Gucheng–Xiaotang area, Tarim Basin, NW China

Abstract

Based on the latest drilling cores, thin sections, and 3D seismic data, types, features, and evolution processes of Cambrian–Ordovician carbonate platforms in the Gucheng and Xiaotang areas are studied, and favorable exploration zones in this area are also discussed. There are two types of carbonate platforms developed in the Cambrian–Ordovician in the Gucheng–Xiaotang area, namely, carbonate ramp and rimmed platforms, and the evolution process of the platform in the Gucheng area is different from that in Xiaotang area. In the Early Cambrian, the study area was a homoclinal carbonate ramp. During the Middle to Late Cambrian, it evolved into a rimmed platform, with 5 phases of mound shoals developed. In the southern area, mound shoals were in progradational arrangement and the third and fourth stages of mound shoals suffering exposure and further developed abundant karst vugs. In the northern area, the mound shoals appeared in a superposition of aggradation–weak progradation, the third, fourth, and fifth stages of mound shoals suffered exposure and dissolution, and the platform slope developed gravity flow deposits. In the Early to Middle Ordovician, the southern area gradually evolved into a distally steepened carbonate ramp, where retrogradational dolomitic shoal developed; while the northern part experienced an evolution process from a weakly rimmed platform to a distally steepened carbonate ramp, and developed two or three stages of retrogradational mound shoals. The high-frequency oscillation of sea level and local exposure and dissolution were beneficial to the formation of mound or shoal reservoirs in platform margin and ramp, and the configuration of these reservoirs with low energy slope–basin facies source rocks could form good oil-gas enrichment zones. The dolomitic shoal in the Ordovician platform ramp is the practical exploration field for increasing reserve and production in the Gucheng area. The mound shoal at the Cambrian rimmed platform margin is the key exploration object in the Xiaotang area. In addition, the Cambrian slope gravity flow deposits can be taken as the favorable exploration fields in the study area.