GEOLOGICAL CONTROLS ON RESERVOIR QUALITY OF THE NORTHERN PERTH BASIN

Abstract

The major onshore Dongara gas field and a number of adjacent minor gas and oil pools are reservoired in basal Triassic sandstones that are sealed by the overlying Kockatea Shale. Reservoir quality is found to be controlled primarily by the local provenance of the sandstones, by diagenesis and the regional palaeotopography. Sandstones east of Dongara are reworked products of a Late Permian fan delta (Wagina Sandstone) that extended westwards from the basin's eastern, fault controlled margin. Localised high energy streams drained the palaeoslope, depositing thin wedges of mainly fluvial sediments upon and around the flanks of the Permian fan delta during a regional rise in sea level in the Early Triassic. Sandstones to the north of Dongara are localised, low energy offshore bars and strandline deposits derived from Precambrian of the Northampton Block. Diagenetic alterations of the Triassic sandstones, also controlled by the sandstones' provenance, have substantially reduced primary porosity and control permeability. The common presence of the authigenic clay mineral, dickite, is taken as evidence that a fluvial environment of deposition controlled formation of the reservoir rocks.