Halokinetic Influence on Carbonate Depositional Environments: An Example from the Fairway Field, East Texas Basin
Kelly Hattori, Geologist - Bureau of Economic Geology STARR Group
Kelly’s talk will focus on one example of a salt-influenced carbonate system, the James Limestone patch reef complex of the Fairway Field. Integration of core and wireline data with a regional understanding of paleotopography generated by salt movement sheds light on the architecture of the system and explains why James Limestone in the Fairway Field was (and remains) a great reservoir.
Biography: Kelly is a carbonate stratigrapher in the Bureau of Economic Geology - STARR research group. Kelly holds a M.S. degree in Geosciences from the University of Texas at Austin and B.S. degrees in Geology and Marine Biology from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Her early research focused on sequence stratigraphy and paleoecology of coral reef systems, particularly with respect to global and local ocean perturbations such as ocean anoxic events and ocean acidification. She now broadly works Gulf Coast Cretaceous carbonates with a focus on “weird” systems such as mixed siliciclastic-carbonate environments, post-perturbation recovery patch reef complexes, and drowned platforms. She has built a specialty in salt-sediment interactions within the East Texas Basin that examine the sometimes-conflicting relationship between halokinesis and traditional sequence stratigraphy as well as the impact of halokinetic topography on carbonate depositional systems.