RECONSTRUCTING AND CORRELATING THE DEPOSITIONAL ENVIRONMENTS OF CLARKE COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI AND LITTLE CEDAR CREEK FIELD, ALABAMA

The purpose of this research is to reconstruct the depositional settings of the Smackover Formation in southwestern Clarke County, Mississippi and to correlate its facies to those of Little Cedar Creek Field (LCC) in Conecuh County, Alabama. There are several small oil fields in southwestern Clarke County that have produced from the Smackover Formation since 1976. This research will examine and correlate the archival well logs and core analyses, to construct maps and cross-sections that illustrate the Smackover facies in the region. The Smackover Formation has been a prolific oil producing formation in the Gulf of Mexico since its discovery in Union County, Arkansas in 1937. The discovery of the LCC field in 1994 and the Brooklyn field in 2007 has generated additional interest in the Smackover. The Brooklyn and LCC fields produce from stratigraphic trapped reserviors in the Upper Jurassic (Oxfordian) Smackover Formation. Using literature reviews and the archival logs and core analyses from Brooklyn and LCC fields, this study will compare the depositional setting in southern Alabama with that of southern Clarke County, Mississippi. Preliminary results, from cross sections in the Brooklyn field, show vuggy and oolitic variations of limestone and dolomite that were classified as wackestones, grainstones and mudstones. Further research will include cross sections in southwestern Clarke County with the goal of similarly classifying the lithology for further correlation to southern Alabama.