Traps

25th March 2009

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There are many ways in which
petroleum may be trapped.

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 Structural Traps
• Traps formed by compressive tectonic
processes
– Compressive tectonic regimes commonly lead to the
development of large-scale contraction folds and thrusts.
• Eg: Zagros Mountains of Iran.
– Compressional anticlines are also a common feature within both
transpressional and transtensional strike-slip basins.
– Anticlinal culminations are commonly aligned en echelon with
the long axes of the anticlines, oblique to the sense of
movement.
– Compressional anticlines may also form as a result of inversion
on old extensional faults.

Anticlinal culminations along

and adjacent to a major right-
lateral wrench fault, Andaman
Sea.

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 Traps formed by extensional
tectonic processes
• Traps formed by extensional tectonics are
very common in rift basins.
• only structural traps produced by
extension of basement.

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 Traps formed by compactional processes
• Differential compaction across
• basement highs,
• tilted fault blocks,
• carbonate shelf rims, reefs,
• isolated sand bodies in mud can lead to the development of relatively
simple anticlinal traps.
• Some of the most simple are also the largest.
• The world's largest field, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia.
• The oil occurs in Jurassic carbonates draped over and compacted around a
north—south-trending basement high.
• Other Example: Bombay High.

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 Traps formed by gravity processes
• Traps formed by gravity-driven processes are particularly important
in large recent deltas.

• The gravity structures form independently of basement tectonics

(either extension or compression).

• They owe their existence to shallow detachment (commonly at a few

kilometers below datum) along a low-angle, basinward-dipping
plane.

• The drive mechanism is provided by the weight of sediment

deposited by the delta at the shelf/slope break or on the slope itself.

• The key detachment surfaces are commonly listric, concave-up, and

concave basinward in plan view. The main faults are commonly
large, being tens of kilometers from tip to tip.

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Displacements on the listric faults are driven by the weight of deposited sediment. In
consequence, they tend to grow in magnitude during sedimentation.

Hence the term "growth fault" is commonly used to describe such structures.

Because fault planes are commonly concaveup, accommodation space at the head
of the fault is created by rotation of the footwall.

Thus the oldest sediments within the hanging-wall sequences are commonly steeply
dipping.

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Stratigraphic Traps

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(a) A "reef" trap. Oil is trapped in the core of the reef, with fore-reef talus and
back-reef lagoonal muds acting as lateral seals and basinal mudstones as top
seals,

(b) A pinchout (sandstone) trap within stacked submarine-fan sandstones. The

upper surface of the cartoon shows the plan geometry of a simple fan lobe.
The lateral, bottom, and top seals are the surrounding basinal mudstones.

(c) A channel-fill sandstone trap. The oil occurs in ribbon-shaped sandstone

bodies. The top surface of the cartoon shows the depositional geometry of the
sandstone. The total seal may be provided by interdistributary mudstones, or by a
combination of these and marine-flooding surfaces,

(d) A shallow-marine sandstone bar completely encased in shallow-marine

mudstone. The upper surface of the cartoon shows a prolate bar

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(e) A sub-unconformity trap. The reservoir horizon is truncated at its updip end by
an unconformity and the sediments overlying the unconformity provide the top
seal. The lateral and bottom seals, like the reservoir interval, predate the
unconformity,

(f) An onlap trap. A basal or near-basal sandstone onlaps a tilted unconformity.

The sandstone pinches out on the unconformity and is overstepped by a top-seal
mudstone.

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Salt Dome Traps
The specific gravity of salt (halite)
is about 2.2 g cm~3; that of
fully consolidated rock is about
2.5—2.7gcm~3. In consequence,
salt is buoyant relative to most
other sediments and
sedimentary rocks.

The terminal stage of diapirism

occurs once the diapir becomes
detached from its host salt layer.

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A sketch section showing the common types of petroleum traps associated with salt domes.
1, An anticlinal drape over a dome; 2, a graben fault trap over a dome; 3, porous cap rock; 4,
a flank pinchout and sandstone lens; 5, a trap beneath an overhang; 6, a trap uplifted and
buttressed against a salt diapir; 7, an unconformity; 8, a fault trap downthrown away from a
dome/diapir; 9, a fault trap downthrown toward a dome/diapir.

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Hydrodynamic traps

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