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Provenance systems and types of sand bodies during Upper Triassic Chang 8 time of the Yanchang Formation, Ordos Basin, China

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Abstract

The Chang 8 interval in the Upper Triassic Yanchang Formation is an important sequence for strategy replacement in the oil exploration field in Ordos Basin, north- central China. Provenance studies demonstrated that the provenance systems can be divided into mainly four systems in the basin: the northeast, northwest, southwest, and south provenance systems. It is inferred that terrigenous clastic sediments mainly originate from the oldlands around the basin. Parent rocks in these provenances are composed of a variety of rocks dominated by metamorphic and igneous rocks. A shallow lake surrounded by multiple deltas was the main sedimentary patterns in the basin, representing three sedimentary facies belts: west braided deltas, east meandering river deltas, and southeast shallow lake. Sand bodies mainly developed extensively along the braided river deltas and the meandering river deltas, which can be divided into the distributary channel type of sand bodies controlled by the traction flow and the bar type of sand bodies related to the lake wave and lake flow reconstruction according to the genesis of sand bodies. Moreover, the structural characteristics of the different types of sand body in vertical, horizontal, and plane views were classified. Vertically, there were seven types of single sand bodies, which were related to braided subaerial distributary channels, braided subaqueous distributary channels, distal bars, subaerial distributary channels, subaqueous distributary channels, mouth bars, and natural levees, respectively. Horizontally, sand bodies have sheet shape structure, migration and stack structure, isolated structure, and composite structure. There were five types of plane shape of sand bodies developed in the basin, including widely strip shape, mesh shape, cramped and strip shape, “bird foot” shape, and branched shape.

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Acknowledgements

This paper was written whilst Dr. Xiong Ding was a visiting scholar at the Department of Geology and Geophysics, Texas A&M University, the support of which is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Sara J. Mason, MSc, from Liwen Bianji, Edanz Editing China (www.liwenbianji.cn/ac), for editing the English text of a draft of this manuscript.

Funding

This work was initially carried out with the support by the China Scholarship Council Foundation (201708515155), PetroChina Innovation Foundation (2015D-5006-0107), and Open Fund (PLN201613) of State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation (Southwest Petroleum University).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geoscience and Technology, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, 610500, Sichuan, China

    Xiong Ding, Huachuan Jiang & Jingshan Chen

  2. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 3115, USA

    Yuefeng Sun & Min Li

  3. Research Institute of Exploration and Development, PetroChina Changqing Oilfield Company, Xi’an, 710021, Shanxi, China

    Yuanhao Li

  4. Chuanzhong Oil and Gas Field of PetroChina Southwest Petroleum Company, Suining, 629001, Sichuan, China

    Lijie Chen

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  1. Xiong Ding
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Ding, X., Jiang, H., Sun, Y. et al. Provenance systems and types of sand bodies during Upper Triassic Chang 8 time of the Yanchang Formation, Ordos Basin, China. Arab J Geosci 14, 1149 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-07531-3

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