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Quartz diagenesis and convective fluid movement: Beatrice Oilfield, UK North Sea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2018

R. S. Haszeldine ,
I. M. Samson  and
C. Cornford
R. S. Haszeldine
Affiliation:
Stratigraphic Laboratory, Britoil, 150 St Vincent Street, Glasgow G2 5LJ
I. M. Samson
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Geology, Strathclyde University, Glasgow G1 1XJ
C. Cornford
Affiliation:
Stratigraphic Laboratory, Britoil, 150 St Vincent Street, Glasgow G2 5LJ
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Abstract

The extent of diagenesis in Lower Jurassic shoreline sandstones of the Beatrice oilfield was controlled primarily by their detrital clay content. Sandstones rich in detrital clay had low depositional permeabilities; these show preservation of detrital feldspars to the present day and have no extensive diagenetic quartz overgrowths. Sandstones poor in detrital clay had high permeabilities and show large quartz overgrowths as part of a normal sub-arkosic diagenetic sequence. Such quartz occurs preferentially below, but not above, impermeable mudstones. These low- and high-permeability features suggest that pore-fluid flow was important during diagenesis. Fluid inclusions trapped in diagenetic quartz overgrowths formed between 68° and 94°C. This silica was probably supplied in solution from the temperature-driven illitization of smectitic clays surrounding these sandstones deeper in the basin. Fluid volumes from clay dewatering, from mechanical compaction, or from influx of overlying seawater were too small to transport diagenetic silica volumes. Silica-rich fluids were probably transported up-dip by convective cells within the sandstones and authigenic quartz precipitated as these fluids cooled. This episode of quartz diagenesis could have been completed within 1·6 × 106 yr if fluid velocities were 3·1 m/yr. Similar convective fluid flows could have transported the fluids responsible for secondary porosity development and the hydrocarbons expelled from mudstones later in the basin burial history.

Type
Research Article
Information
Clay Minerals , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , June 1984 , pp. 391 - 402
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1984

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