Upper Campanian and Lower Maestrichtian Depositional Systems and Gas Production, Southern Sacramento Basin, California: ABSTRACT

Abstract

Upper Campanian and lower Maestrichtian strata of the southern Sacramento basin include four west- and southwest-prograding submarine-fan/slope/delta systems. The Winters, Lathrop, Tracy, and Blewett formations consist of submarine-fan and related slope/basin-plain deposits that were fed by various deltaic complexes of the Starkey Formation. Four major basinwide transgressive shale units (Sacramento Shale, Sawtooth Shale, Ragged Valley Shale, and H and T Shale) help intrasystem correlations. The Winters, Tracy, and Blewett fans are small, radial, coalescing sand-rich systems that contain the following principal facies: (1) sandstone-filled inner fan channel deposits, (2) mudstone-dominated inner fan interchannel deposits, (3) middle-fan amalgamated suprafan-type sandstone-rich channel deposits, and (4) mudstone-dominated outer fan deposits. The Lathrop fans are larger, elongate, mixed-sediment systems that contain basin-plain, outer fan lobe, middle fan-channel, levee, interchannel, and inner fan channel facies. The Sierran-derived fluvio-deltaic Starkey Formation can be divided into six sand-rich deltaic cycles that can be subdivided on the basis of log signaturres and spatial distribution into prodelta, delta-front, lower delta-plain, and upper delta-plain/fluvial facies. More than 50 gas fields produce from these systems. Stratigraphic traps include updip pinchouts of submarine canyon/gullies and inner fan channels into slope shale, especially in the many overlapping and coalescing sand-rich systems. Lateral pinchoutsmore » of outer fan lobes and middle-fan suprafan-type bodies are also productive. Structural traps generally characterize production from deltaic deposits because of the more continuous nature of these bodies.« less