Assessment of sedimentary fabric and natural fracture distribution of the Sulphur Mountain Formation using digital outcrop modeling: an analogue of the Montney Formation

Date
2020-05-07
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Abstract

This study aims to better understand certain reservoir properties of the Montney Formation by studying equivalent strata of the Sulphur Mountain Formation. Utilizing unmanned areal vehicle (UAV) based photography and photogrammetry, digital outcrop models were created of these outcrops and form the primary dataset for this work. Using these digital outcrop models the sedimentary fabric and natural fracture distribution of this formation has been assessed. This work has revealed several distinct metre-scale sedimentary fabrics within the Vega and Phroso Siltstone members that can be linked to core-scale sedimentary facies, although very similar core-scale sedimentary facies can have starkly different metre-scale fabrics. Through assessing the natural fracture distribution, it has been observed that sedimentary fabric has a strong control of the height distribution of natural fractures, and that the intensity of natural fractures may vary greatly laterally on different scales and spacings ranging from a few metres to hundreds of metres.

Description
Keywords
Sedimentology, Fractures
Citation
Poirier, S. S. P. (2020). Assessment of sedimentary fabric and natural fracture distribution of the Sulphur Mountain Formation using digital outcrop modeling: an analogue of the Montney Formation (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.