STUDYING FLUID INCLUSIONS IN THE LA POPA BASIN, MEXICO AS AN ANALOG TO FLUID MIGRATION IN SEDIMENTS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO

The Gulf of Mexico has large quantities of untapped petroleum waiting for discovery. The processes of locating buried sedimentary structures can be challenging due to the poor seismic resolution qualities of deep water; this makes the location and access of underwater petroleum difficult. One way to improve our understanding of seismic reflection data is to study the structures exposed in sedimentary basins on land as an analog to the deep water environments. The La Popa basin in northern Mexico serves as an easily accessible on shore location containing similar sedimentary facies with many analogues to the inaccessible seafloor. The basin contains salt diapires and salt welds that affect the petroleum bearing strata and the manner in which they transport petroleum bearing fluids along faults and via porous media flow. In the past, the salt weld in the Devil's Anus area may have acted as a conduit for a petroleum bearing fluids. Samples of the passing fluids are preserved as fluid inclusions inside minerals such as quartz, calcite and dolomite which precipitate as a water-rock interaction in response to temperature, pH, and pressure changes. The fluid inclusions can be viewed as 1-10 micron time capsules recording chemical, and temperature conditions that are present when they formed inside the growing mineral. With the information gathered it is possible to create a history of hydrocarbons allowing for more accurate constraints on burial depth, temperature history, fluid composition/interactions and the migration patterns of both fluid movements and accumulation. In this project, I am studying fluid inclusions in thin sections of samples, collected in transect, near the Devils Anus area adjacent to a prominent salt weld. Using fluid inclusion microthermometry, I will build a thermal model for fluid flow in the basin and also constrain the major chemical compositions of the fluid. I will present data about locations and types of fluid inclusions, their composition, and burial temperatures as well as useful data about the movement and presence of hydrocarbons and other paleofluids in the La Popa Basin. These data will help future models which aim to enhance oil reserve discovery, oil generation data and reservoir charge estimation.