Ancient marine carbonates experienced complex modifications, making it difficult to identify reservoir genesis and effective porosity before hydrocarbon migration. To solve these issues, we used element mapping and carbonate mineral laser U-Pb radiometric dating techniques to study the diagenetic environments based on geochemistry and diagenesis-porosity evolution based on geochronology of the dolomite reservoir of the Sinian Qigebrak Formation, northwest Tarim Basin. Two major understandings were obtained as follows: (1) Supported by petrographic observations, the element mapping, stable isotopes, strontium isotope, and cathodoluminescence tests were performed on different phases of dolomite cements precipitated in vugs and dissolved fissures. The results show that the dolomite reservoirs of the Qigebrak Formation went through freshwater, marine, extremely shallow burial, burial and hydrothermal diagenetic environments after synsedimentary dolomitization; the reservoir spaces were mainly formed in the synsedimentary period (primary pores) and freshwater environment (supergene dissolution pores) before burial; whereas the marine, burial and hydrothermal environments caused the gradual filling of reservoir space by dolomite cements. (2) Based on the above understandings, each phase of dolomite cement precipitated in the reservoir space was dated by the U-Pb radiometric dating technique, and the diagenesis-porosity evolution curves constrained by geochronology were established. The loss of reservoir porosity mainly occurred in the early Caledonian, and during the peak period of hydrocarbon generation of Yuertusi Formation source rock, the reservoirs still maintained at a porosity of 6%–10%. The above understandings provide a certain basis for the evaluation of accumulation effectiveness of the Sinian Qigebrak Formation, northwestern Tarim Basin, and provide a case for the application of mapping and dating techniques in the study of ancient carbonate reservoirs.
In recent years, global forests have been facing an increase in tree mortality owing to increasing droughts. However, the capacity for plants to adjust their physiology and biochemistry during extreme drought and subsequent recovery is still unclear. Here, we used 1.5-year-old Pinus massoniana Lamb. seedlings and simulated drought conditions to achieve three target stress levels (50%, 85%, and 100% loss of stem hydraulic conductivity (PLC)), followed by rehydration. Needle water status, gas exchange, and biochemical parameters were assessed during drought and recovery. The results showed that drought had significantly negative impacts on needle water status and gas exchange parameters, with gas exchange declining to 0 after PLC85 was achieved. Soluble protein concentration (SPC), soluble sugar concentration (SSC), malondialdehyde (MDA) content, superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, and needle water-use efficiency showed fluctuations. The activity of antioxidant enzymes and the values of osmotic regulators were then gradually decreased as the physiological and biochemical functions of seedlings were disturbed. Seedlings showed a stronger ability to recover from PLC50 than PLC85 and PLC100. We conclude that the physiological and biochemical recovery of P. massoniana seedlings is more likely to be inhibited when plants experience increasing drought stress that induces 85% and greater loss of hydraulic conductance.
Aiming at the scientific problem that only part of dolomite acts as dolomite reservoir, this paper takes the multiple dolomite-bearing formations in the Tarim and Ordos basins, NW China and Sichuan Basin, SW China as the study object, by means of mineral petrological analysis and geochemical methods including carbonate clumped isotope, U-Pb isotopic dating, etc., to rebuild the dolomitization pathway and evaluate its effects on reservoir formation. On the basis of detailed rock thin section observation, five dolomitic structural components are identified, including original fabric-retained dolomite (microbial and/or micrite structure), buried metasomatic dolomite I (subhedral–euhedral fine, medium and coarse crystalline structure), buried metasomatic dolomite II (allotriomorphic–subhedral fine, medium and coarse crystalline structure), buried precipitation dolomite and coarse crystalline saddle dolomite. Among them, the first three exist in the form of rocks, the latter two occur as dolomite minerals filling in pores and fractures. The corresponding petrological and geochemical identification templates for them are established. Based on the identification of the five dolomitic structural components, six dolomitization pathways for three types of reservoirs (preserved dolomite, reworked dolomite and limestone buried dolomitization) are distinguished. The initial porosity of the original rock before dolomitization and the dolomitization pathway are the main factors controlling the development of dolomite reservoirs. The preserved dolomite and reworked dolomite types have the most favorable dolomitization pathway for reservoir formation, and are large scale and controlled by sedimentary facies in development and distribution, making them the first choices for oil and gas exploration in deep carbonate formations.
The Laser Ablation (LA)Multi-Collector Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS) technique, co-developed by the CNPC Key Laboratory of Carbonate Reservoir and School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland, has huge potential to overcome the difficulty in sampling and dating ultra-low concentration U-Pb minerals in ancient marine carbonates that are relatively smaller in diameter in diagenetic fabric, which was untenable by the conventional isotope dilution (ID) methods. The in-situ analysis by LA combined with MC-ICP-MS has been applied to the study on the diagenesis and porosity evolution of the Cambrian Xiaoerbulake reservoir, Tarim Basin.By dating of dolomitic and calcitic cements from filled vugs, matrix pores and fractures in different stages, we suggested that the burial diagenetic history of dolomite reservoir in the Cambrian Xiaoerblake Formation mainly features the filling of primary pores and vugs generated under karstification. The filling of vugs mainly occurred during the early Caledonian, while the filling of matrix pores mainly occurred in the middle Caledonian and Indosinian. Fractures activated during the Caledonian and Indosinian served as the channels for hydrothermal migration, providing the materials to cement the vugs and pores; while the residual vugs, pores and fractures with no filling of dolomite, calcite and siliceous cements were the main reservoir space. The diagenesis and porosity evolution history of dolomite reservoir in the Cambrian Xiaoerbulake Formation, Tarim Basin, was hence established. The understandings mentioned above are highly consistent with the tectonic-burial history and basin thermal history in the study area, which may be effective tools to date the ancient marine carbonate reservoir cements, to reconstruct diagenesis and porosity evolution history, and to evaluate effective pores before hydrocarbon migration in the ancient marine carbonates.
The Chigbrak Formation in the Upper Ediacaran is one of the important exploration targets in the Tarim Basin, NW China. However, no significant discoveries have been made in this field, and unclear reservoir genesis is one of the important factors restricting exploration breakthrough. This study examined the outcrops of the Aksu area in northwestern Tarim Basin by using systematic descriptions of petrologic features in the Upper Ediacaran Chigbrak Formation. Samples were selected for tests of stable carbon and oxygen isotopic compositions, strontium isotopic compositions, rare earth elements, LA–ICP–MS element mapping and U–Pb dating. It was found that (1) the Chigbrak Formation is mainly composed of dolomitic microbialite, with average values of δ13C (PDB), δ18O (PDB) and 87Sr/86Sr of 3.50‰, 2.95‰ and 0.709457, and has similar geochemical characteristics to the coeval seawater. The dolomites have also been characterized by a medium degree of cation ordering (avg. 0.68), a low content of ΣREEs (avg. 9.03 ppm) and a chondrite standardized curve of REEs showing enrichment of LREE and depletion of HREE. The U–Pb ages range from 538 to 618 Ma, corresponding to the age of Ediacaran period. (2) Dolomitization occurred in a marine diagenetic environment during the penecontemporaneous period, with seawater as the dolomitization fluid. (3) Vugs are the dominant pore type of Chigbrak Formation, and they are the products of the dissolution of meteoric water in penecontemporaneous period. (4) The main controlling factors of reservoir were lithofacies, meteoric water dissolution controlled by fourth– or fifth–order sequences and tectonic movement, and early dolomitization. The research results are of great significance to the dolomite reservoir prediction of the Upper Ediacaran Chigbrak Formation of the Tarim Basin.
Abstract The higher abundance of dolomite in the Neoproterozoic compared with that of the Phanerozoic has been linked to elevated marine Mg/Ca ratios, and a hypothesized ‘dolomite sea’ that promoted widespread syn‐sedimentary fibrous dolomite cement precipitation. This article provides new uranium–lead (U–Pb) chronology, clumped isotope thermometry ( T Δ47 ), combined with δ 13 C and δ 18 O, and trace element geochemistry measurements for different types of dolomite, including bulk dolomite matrix (BD), fibrous dolomite cements (DC1) and late sparry dolomite cements (DC2 and DC3), in three Neoproterozoic dolostone profiles from China. The Ediacaran U–Pb ages coupled with nearly identical, low T Δ47 temperatures (average at ca 55‐60°C) for BD and DC1 dolomites, imply that these dolomites were either syn‐depositional or early diagenetic. Some DC1 dolomites yield slightly younger ( ca 20 to 50 Ma) U–Pb ages than the BD dolomites, suggesting that they were diagenetic products formed after matrix dolomitization. The estimates of δ 18 O water values for dolomitizing fluids suggest that both DC1 and BD dolomites were precipitated from highly evaporated seawater. In contrast, DC2 and DC3 dolomites filling in vugs and fractures have much younger U–Pb ages (mostly <525 Ma), higher T Δ47 temperatures (>95°C), and lower Sr and U contents, which is consistent with the paragenetic sequence that they were deeper burial diagenetic products. A synthesized diagenetic model with evaporative dolomitizing water evolved from anoxic, ferruginous to sub‐oxic and/or oxic, non‐ferruginous conditions is responsible for the decrease of Fe and Mn concentrations in global DC1 and BD dolomites throughout Neoproterozoic time. This study suggests that the widely distributed Neoproterozoic fibrous dolomite cements may be a later diagenetic feature, and thus calls into question their use in palaeoclimate reconstruction and as a principal line of evidence for the Neoproterozoic ‘dolomite sea’ hypothesis.
For predicting the distribution of favorable reservoir facies belts of the super-large ancient Anyue carbonate gas field in the Sichuan Basin, through an analysis of structure and lithofacies paleogeography, the lithofacies paleogeography and sedimentary model of the Sinian Dengying Fm was reconstructed based on the field outcrop, drilling and seismic data. As a result, achievements are made in four aspects. First, the basin and its periphery resided in an extensional tectonic setting in the Sinian. Intense extension led to the formation of the Deyang–Anyue intra-platform rift. The Sichuan Basin was divided into the palaeo-geographic pattern of "two uplifts and four sags". The "two uplifts" evolved into the platform, and the "four sags" evolved into the slope-basin environment. Second, in the depositional stage of the Deng 2 Member, some favorable reservoir belts developed, such as bioherm-shoal at the continental margin, bioherm-shoal at the rift margin, and bioherm-shoal in the platform. The bioherm-shoal at rift margin developed along both sides of the Deyang–Anyue rift, in a U-shape, with a width of about 5–40 km and a length of about 500 km. It connected with the platform margin belt at the continental margin to the west in the Shifang area, and to the north near Guangyuan area. Third, in the depositional stage of the Deng 4 Member, when the lithofacies paleogeographic features in the Deng 2 Member remained, the platform margin belt at the rift margin evolved into two parts in the east and the west as a result of the continuous southward extensional faulting of the Deyang–Anyue rift until it finally crossed the basin from north to south. The eastern platform margin belt was located in the Guangyuan–Yanting–Anyue–Luzhou area, showing NS distribution with a length of about 450 km and a width of about 4–50 km. The western platform margin belt mainly developed in the Dujiangyan–Chengdu–Weiyuan–Yibin–Mabian area, showing an eastward arc distribution with a length of about 300 km and a width of 4–30 km. And fourth, the sedimentary model of rimmed platform with double platform margins in the Dengying Fm was established, providing a guidance for predicting the distribution of favorable reservoir facies belts.
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