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2-3 Rasmussen, J.C., Keith, S.B., Swan, M.M., Laux, D. P., and Caprara, J., 2003, Strike-slip faulting and reservoir development in New York State: New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, Albany, NY, Contract Agreement no. 6984, 161 p.
ABS
This study of tectonics and reservoir development at and near Glodes Corner, New York, has led to the development of an integrative hydrothermal dolomite (HTD) gas exploration model that not only has the potential to define gas or oil accumulations, but also may define important internal conduit features that are related to the hydrocarbon charge. The Glodes Corner field is characterized by a seismically defined sag structure that reflects a collapse feature associated with the formation of HTD at the Trenton-Black River level that is some 8,000 feet below the surface. Soil geochemistry interpreted according to this new fluid fractionation and shear-system kinematic model identifies well-developed, east-to-west asymmetrical patterns in redox potential (CO2:O2 and ferrous:ferric ratios) and the distribution and compositional mixtures of hydrocarbon gases and a variety of trace metals.
2-3 Rasmussen, J.C., Keith, S.B., Swan, M.M., Laux, D. P., and Caprara, J., 2003, Strike-slip faulting and reservoir development in New York State: New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, Albany, NY, Contract Agreement no. 6984, 161 p.
ABS
This study of tectonics and reservoir development at and near Glodes Corner, New York, has led to the development of an integrative hydrothermal dolomite (HTD) gas exploration model that not only has the potential to define gas or oil accumulations, but also may define important internal conduit features that are related to the hydrocarbon charge. The Glodes Corner field is characterized by a seismically defined sag structure that reflects a collapse feature associated with the formation of HTD at the Trenton-Black River level that is some 8,000 feet below the surface. Soil geochemistry interpreted according to this new fluid fractionation and shear-system kinematic model identifies well-developed, east-to-west asymmetrical patterns in redox potential (CO2:O2 and ferrous:ferric ratios) and the distribution and compositional mixtures of hydrocarbon gases and a variety of trace metals.
Zonal patterns identified within the field conform to an inferred reaction sequence that follows two earlier stages. Stage 1 is generation of methane/hydrocarbon-stable, metagenic fluids formed by serpentinization of peridotite in intracratonic failed rifts or collisional sutures in the basement as triggered by compressive, convergent orogenesis. Stage 2 is initial, low temperature, ‘passive’ dolomitization of the first replaceable, typically shelf carbonate in the overlying cratonic cover sequence. The following paragenetic stages occur at the reservoir site: Stage 3A (early saddle dolomitization at or near the depositional site), Stage 3B (late saddle dolomitization, anhydrite formation, carbon dioxide effervescence, hydrogen loss and methane unmixing), Stage 4 (sulfide and hydrocarbon deposition), and Stage 5 (deposition of late calcite at the depositional site and illite/smectite/kaolinite clays in and marginal to the depositional site).
This paragenetic reaction series is the predicted fractionation pattern developed from an initially reduced, high-temperature fluid evolving toward a more oxidized, lower-temperature fluid. The within-reservoir, conduit architecture of permeability and dolomite permeability plugging can be identified by interpretation of hydrocarbon gas distribution (C1-C2 high in conduits) and trace metal distribution (elevated along with C5 and C6 hydrocarbons away from the conduits). By integrating soil gas geochemistry, fluid fractionation, and shear-system kinematics, it may be possible to precisely detect permeable conduits inside the resolution from seismic imaging. This model has significant exploration implications for the geochemical identification of hydrocarbon-charged reservoirs where combined structural and stratigraphic features have produced geochemically zoned, three-dimensional geographic patterns during emplacement of the hydrocarbon charge.
The Glodes Corner field is located in the northeasternmost part of Steuben County in south-central New York. Glodes Corner is the largest of a cluster of gas fields hosted in hydrothermal dolomites that have replaced shelf limestones in the Upper Ordovician Trenton-Black River Groups beneath south-central New York. Glodes Corner has sufficient hydrocarbons to be ranked as a ‘significant’ gas field in the U.S. Geological Survey classification. The field itself occurs beneath a seismically defined sag feature that is expressed at the current topographic surface as an east-northeast-striking synclinal fold in Devonian strata within the Catskill delta wedge. The Catskill wedge is the main sedimentological feature of the Acadian Orogeny of Devonian age and formed in its foreland.
During the Acadian Orogeny (350-400 Ma), large-scale, basement-derived, possibly hydrocarbon-stable, hydrothermal fluids are thought to have been derived from a serpentinized peridotite source in the Cambrian-age rift system beneath central Steuben County, New York. The inferred serpentine source is consistent with a prominent magnetic feature (resulting from magnetite formed during serpentinization) that coincides with a conspicuous gravity low in the middle of the magnetic high (resulting from low density serpentine). Serpentinization of the inferred peridotite is thought to have accompanied greenschist grade (~300˚C at 5-8 km depth) metamorphism and the rift basement during the peak Acadian  metamorphic event at about 360-375 Ma.
Hydrothermal fluids originating from the inferred peridotitic source are thought to have utilized a conduit system consisting of interconnected northwest- and northeast- to east-northeast-striking faults to travel from the serpentinized source to the Trenton-Black River shelf carbonate cover sequence. At Glodes Corner, potentially hydrocarbon-stable, hydrothermal, low-pH, carbonated alkali brines are thought to have laterally and vertically ascended along a N50W-striking feeder-conduit. Both vitrinite reflectance and conodont alteration index data indicate that the deep gas cluster in south-central New York could have formed in the uppermost part of or even above the thermogenic gas window, which is 200Ëš to 300ËšC.
At Glodes Corner, the fluids migrated westward into an incipient riedel/tensile structural trap in highly reactive and replaceable calcitic limestones of the Trenton-Black River cratonic shelf cover. East-to-west flow is consistent with a gradual west-tapering within the field, which is about 5 km long in an east-west direction. The structural setting predicted an east-to-west chemical fractionation. A chemical zonation pattern resulted from fractionation of fluids that deposited a high-temperature, reduced chemical assemblage at the east end and deposited lower temperature, more oxidized distillates at its western end near the tip of the inferred fluid/alteration wedge. In particular, the zonal patterns at Glodes Corner strongly conform to the portion of the reaction sequence covered by stages 3A (early saddle dolomitization at and near depositional site) and 3B (late saddle dolomitization, anhydrite formation, carbon dioxide effervescence, hydrogen loss and methane unmixing), stage 4 (sulfide deposition and hydrocarbon deposition), and stage 5 (deposition of late calcite at depositional site and illite/ smectite/ kaolinite clays in and marginal to depositional site).
Subsequent to the emplacement of the gas-bearing hydrothermal deposit, south-central New York was affected by the north-northwest – south-southeast shortening associated with the Alleghenian orogeny at about 260 to 300 Ma. At this time, the reservoir and the overlying Catskill sedimentary wedge were deformed around east-northeast – west-southwest-trending, broad, fold warps in the northern part of theAlleghenian fold-thrust deformational fan in the Pennsylvanian embayment/salient. Location of the fold features may have, in part, been controlled by the antecedent, Acadian–produced, riedel/tensile, graben/sag features, such as that at Glodes Corner.
Fluid migration patterns in strike-slip settings hosting hydrothermal metalliferous system (Carlin-type gold deposits) are analogous to hydrocarbon migration patterns, particularly in hydrothermal dolomite settings. Faults are not merely passive conduits and seals that statically receive and trap fluid sometime after their formation. Rather, fluid formation, movement, and deposition within any fault system characterize an active process that co-dynamically conjoins fault kinematics with fluid generation, flow, and deposition.
Porphyry metal deposit analogs (Carlin/North Trend of Nevada) indicate a synkinematic relationship between strike-slip fault movements, the emplacement of pluton gold sources, and the release of gold-bearing fluids into riedel/tensile splays and/or wedge-like stratigraphic traps. The most economic traps involve the intersection of favorable stratigraphy with the footwall of P-shear conduits. Where this stratigraphy is blocked in its updip portions by other faults that mark changes in dip domain or juxtapositions with unfavorable stratigraphy, a wedge-like ‘trap’ can be associated with especially high grade gold accumulations (e.g., Meikle mine). The fluid migration path is identified through geochemistry. As fluids migrate from a high pressure source to low pressure deposition sites, they fractionate, resulting in a systematic paragenetic chemical dispersal sequence. Increase in oxidation state during the process is a first order control on the fractionation.
Similar strike-slip configurations trap accumulations of petroleum in strike-slip fault environments (Jonas and Cave Creek gas fields in Wyoming and Glodes Corner, Steuben County, New York). In both mineral deposit and petroleum systems, the paths of the economic fluids utilized a curved trajectory in moving from the P-shear conduit to the stratigraphic wedge. This curved trajectory appears to be characteristic of fluid migration in both porphyry metal and petroleum accumulations related to wrench-fault tectonism.
Recent geochemical data from Glodes Corner, New York, may define fluid migration pathways that are analogous to the fluid migration pathways in Carlin gold systems. Carbon geochemistry fractionates from west to east along the riedel/tensile conduit. This fluid pathway is inferred from the presence of a more H-rich, reduced assemblage of higher CO2/O2 ratios, C-1 to C-4 gases on the east (near the intersection with an inferred northwest-trending ‘feeder’ structure) to a more oxidized, H -poor environment on the west, characterized by and assemblage of higher C-number gases (especially C-5 and C-6) and more oxidized, O-rich assemblage characterized by lower CO2/O2 ratios on the west. The inferred feeder structure appears to have been undergoing active, left-slip kinematics at the time of the gas introduction, which is inferred to have entered the hydrothermal dolomite reservoir in the underlying Trenton/Black River section from the southeast. Fluid movement and its fractionation are necessary products of interactively coordinated kinematics within the strike-slip fault system and, more importantly, specifically predict economic targets.
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2-3 Rasmussen, J.C., Keith, S.B., Swan, M.M., Laux, D. P., and Caprara, J., 2003, Strike-slip faulting and reservoir development in New York State: New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, Albany, NY, Contract Agreement no. 6984, 161 p.
ABS
This study of tectonics and reservoir development at and near Glodes Corner, New York, has led to the development of an integrative hydrothermal dolomite (HTD) gas exploration model that not only has the potential to define gas or oil accumulations, but also may define important internal conduit features that are related to the hydrocarbon charge. The Glodes Corner field is characterized by a seismically defined sag structure that reflects a collapse feature associated with the formation of HTD at the Trenton-Black River level that is some 8,000 feet below the surface. Soil geochemistry interpreted according to this new fluid fractionation and shear-system kinematic model identifies well-developed, east-to-west asymmetrical patterns in redox potential (CO2:O2 and ferrous:ferric ratios) and the distribution and compositional mixtures of hydrocarbon gases and a variety of trace metals.
Zonal patterns identified within the field conform to an inferred reaction sequence that follows two earlier stages. Stage 1 is generation of methane/hydrocarbon-stable, metagenic fluids formed by serpentinization of peridotite in intracratonic failed rifts or collisional sutures in the basement as triggered by compressive, convergent orogenesis. Stage 2 is initial, low temperature, ‘passive’ dolomitization of the first replaceable, typically shelf carbonate in the overlying cratonic cover sequence. The following paragenetic stages occur at the reservoir site: Stage 3A (early saddle dolomitization at or near the depositional site), Stage 3B (late saddle dolomitization, anhydrite formation, carbon dioxide effervescence, hydrogen loss and methane unmixing), Stage 4 (sulfide and hydrocarbon deposition), and Stage 5 (deposition of late calcite at the depositional site and illite/smectite/kaolinite clays in and marginal to the depositional site).
This paragenetic reaction series is the predicted fractionation pattern developed from an initially reduced, high-temperature fluid evolving toward a more oxidized, lower-temperature fluid. The within-reservoir, conduit architecture of permeability and dolomite permeability plugging can be identified by interpretation of hydrocarbon gas distribution (C1-C2 high in conduits) and trace metal distribution (elevated along with C5 and C6 hydrocarbons away from the conduits). By integrating soil gas geochemistry, fluid fractionation, and shear-system kinematics, it may be possible to precisely detect permeable conduits inside the resolution from seismic imaging. This model has significant exploration implications for the geochemical identification of hydrocarbon-charged reservoirs where combined structural and stratigraphic features have produced geochemically zoned, three-dimensional geographic patterns during emplacement of the hydrocarbon charge.
The Glodes Corner field is located in the northeasternmost part of Steuben County in south-central New York. Glodes Corner is the largest of a cluster of gas fields hosted in hydrothermal dolomites that have replaced shelf limestones in the Upper Ordovician Trenton-Black River Groups beneath south-central New York. Glodes Corner has sufficient hydrocarbons to be ranked as a ‘significant’ gas field in the U.S. Geological Survey classification. The field itself occurs beneath a seismically defined sag feature that is expressed at the current topographic surface as an east-northeast-striking synclinal fold in Devonian strata within the Catskill delta wedge. The Catskill wedge is the main sedimentological feature of the Acadian Orogeny of Devonian age and formed in its foreland.
During the Acadian Orogeny (350-400 Ma), large-scale, basement-derived, possibly hydrocarbon-stable, hydrothermal fluids are thought to have been derived from a serpentinized peridotite source in the Cambrian-age rift system beneath central Steuben County, New York. The inferred serpentine source is consistent with a prominent magnetic feature (resulting from magnetite formed during serpentinization) that coincides with a conspicuous gravity low in the middle of the magnetic high (resulting from low density serpentine). Serpentinization of the inferred peridotite is thought to have accompanied greenschist grade (~300˚C at 5-8 km depth) metamorphism and the rift basement during the peak Acadian  metamorphic event at about 360-375 Ma.
Hydrothermal fluids originating from the inferred peridotitic source are thought to have utilized a conduit system consisting of interconnected northwest- and northeast- to east-northeast-striking faults to travel from the serpentinized source to the Trenton-Black River shelf carbonate cover sequence. At Glodes Corner, potentially hydrocarbon-stable, hydrothermal, low-pH, carbonated alkali brines are thought to have laterally and vertically ascended along a N50W-striking feeder-conduit. Both vitrinite reflectance and conodont alteration index data indicate that the deep gas cluster in south-central New York could have formed in the uppermost part of or even above the thermogenic gas window, which is 200Ëš to 300ËšC.
At Glodes Corner, the fluids migrated westward into an incipient riedel/tensile structural trap in highly reactive and replaceable calcitic limestones of the Trenton-Black River cratonic shelf cover. East-to-west flow is consistent with a gradual west-tapering within the field, which is about 5 km long in an east-west direction. The structural setting predicted an east-to-west chemical fractionation. A chemical zonation pattern resulted from fractionation of fluids that deposited a high-temperature, reduced chemical assemblage at the east end and deposited lower temperature, more oxidized distillates at its western end near the tip of the inferred fluid/alteration wedge. In particular, the zonal patterns at Glodes Corner strongly conform to the portion of the reaction sequence covered by stages 3A (early saddle dolomitization at and near depositional site) and 3B (late saddle dolomitization, anhydrite formation, carbon dioxide effervescence, hydrogen loss and methane unmixing), stage 4 (sulfide deposition and hydrocarbon deposition), and stage 5 (deposition of late calcite at depositional site and illite/ smectite/ kaolinite clays in and marginal to depositional site).
Subsequent to the emplacement of the gas-bearing hydrothermal deposit, south-central New York was affected by the north-northwest – south-southeast shortening associated with the Alleghenian orogeny at about 260 to 300 Ma. At this time, the reservoir and the overlying Catskill sedimentary wedge were deformed around east-northeast – west-southwest-trending, broad, fold warps in the northern part of theAlleghenian fold-thrust deformational fan in the Pennsylvanian embayment/salient. Location of the fold features may have, in part, been controlled by the antecedent, Acadian–produced, riedel/tensile, graben/sag features, such as that at Glodes Corner.
Fluid migration patterns in strike-slip settings hosting hydrothermal metalliferous system (Carlin-type gold deposits) are analogous to hydrocarbon migration patterns, particularly in hydrothermal dolomite settings. Faults are not merely passive conduits and seals that statically receive and trap fluid sometime after their formation. Rather, fluid formation, movement, and deposition within any fault system characterize an active process that co-dynamically conjoins fault kinematics with fluid generation, flow, and deposition.
Porphyry metal deposit analogs (Carlin/North Trend of Nevada) indicate a synkinematic relationship between strike-slip fault movements, the emplacement of pluton gold sources, and the release of gold-bearing fluids into riedel/tensile splays and/or wedge-like stratigraphic traps. The most economic traps involve the intersection of favorable stratigraphy with the footwall of P-shear conduits. Where this stratigraphy is blocked in its updip portions by other faults that mark changes in dip domain or juxtapositions with unfavorable stratigraphy, a wedge-like ‘trap’ can be associated with especially high grade gold accumulations (e.g., Meikle mine). The fluid migration path is identified through geochemistry. As fluids migrate from a high pressure source to low pressure deposition sites, they fractionate, resulting in a systematic paragenetic chemical dispersal sequence. Increase in oxidation state during the process is a first order control on the fractionation.
Similar strike-slip configurations trap accumulations of petroleum in strike-slip fault environments (Jonas and Cave Creek gas fields in Wyoming and Glodes Corner, Steuben County, New York). In both mineral deposit and petroleum systems, the paths of the economic fluids utilized a curved trajectory in moving from the P-shear conduit to the stratigraphic wedge. This curved trajectory appears to be characteristic of fluid migration in both porphyry metal and petroleum accumulations related to wrench-fault tectonism.
Recent geochemical data from Glodes Corner, New York, may define fluid migration pathways that are analogous to the fluid migration pathways in Carlin gold systems. Carbon geochemistry fractionates from west to east along the riedel/tensile conduit. This fluid pathway is inferred from the presence of a more H-rich, reduced assemblage of higher CO2/O2 ratios, C-1 to C-4 gases on the east (near the intersection with an inferred northwest-trending ‘feeder’ structure) to a more oxidized, H -poor environment on the west, characterized by and assemblage of higher C-number gases (especially C-5 and C-6) and more oxidized, O-rich assemblage characterized by lower CO2/O2 ratios on the west. The inferred feeder structure appears to have been undergoing active, left-slip kinematics at the time of the gas introduction, which is inferred to have entered the hydrothermal dolomite reservoir in the underlying Trenton/Black River section from the southeast. Fluid movement and its fractionation are necessary products of interactively coordinated kinematics within the strike-slip fault system and, more importantly, specifically predict economic targets.
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