Abstract
The Permian Basin of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico has been a center of oil and gas exploration since the early 1940s. Hydrocarbon profusion is focused in the shelfal areas of the Permian Basil with one of the most prolific clastic reservoirs being the Queen Formation. The Queen Formation is part of the Artesia Group, a sequence of interbedded shelf carbonates. evaporates, and classics. The first purpose of this thesis is to characterize the facies and petrography of the Queen Formation and its sandstone reservoirs at the Moose and Virey Queen fields. The second purpose is to investigate the depositional and diagenetic processes that control the formation, size and quality of the sandstone reservoirs and non-reservoirs. The Queen Formation at the Moose and Virey Queen Gelds generally consist of feldspathic litharenites to litharenites in a complex sequence of interbreed very fine-grained sandstones, coarse grained milestones, anhydritic very fine-grained sandstones, halitic very fine-grained sandstones. Based upon grain size measurements and petrographic analyses, these sandstones can be classified as well sorted sandflat, saline sandflat, and intertidal sandstones from a fluvial depositional system represented by a sequence of coarsening and finning upward cycles.The primary porosity of all of the sandstones of the Queen Formation was reduced by the precipitation of authigenic clay, the infiltration of mud and the formation of soil structures, and the precipitation of authigenic cements such as halite and anhydrite. Reservoirs were formed in the sandflat facies by the dissolution of cements and labile grains, creating enhanced secondary porosity. This project is just one part of a regional study of the Queen Formation in the Permian Basil which can be added to the extensive database on the Queen sandstones in order to obtain a more accurate delineation of the processes responsible for the deposition of the Queen Formation.
Voncannon, Jennifer Catherine (1999). The composition and diagenesis of the Queen Formation (Guadalupian, Permian) at Virey and Moose Queen fields, Midland County, Texas. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -1999 -THESIS -V66.