Petroleum Geological Importance in Delta System

What is deltaic systems?

Deltas are highly complex systems that form where a river enters a standing body of water
and include a mixture of bot fluvial and marine process. Nearly all the facies associated
with the meandering and anastomosed river systems and with beach, Barrier Island, and
tidal systems can be found within deltas.
Deltas and petroleum systems
Most of the terrigenous clastic sediments which is preserved in the geologic column was
deposited in marginal marine and shallow marine, nearshore environments. Much of these
transitional sediments of sand, silt, and clay was transported by large streams from land
masses to the coastal areas and deposited in deltas. In the deltaic environment, there was
prolific organic production and rapid sedimentation to cover and preserve the organic
material that was converted, soon after burial, to oil and gas. The hydrocarbons moved
into porous, lenticular sands that were deposited at the fringes of the deltas and in
distributary and tidal channels. In some basins, faulting was contemporaneous with
deposition, and upward growth of salt or shale diapirs resulted from the rapid deltaic
deposition. These local uplifts created structural traps in which the hydrocarbons could be
concentrated. Thus, the deltaic environment with abundant source beds, plentiful porous
reservoirs, and numerous stratigraphic and structural traps was a favorable habitat for oil
and gas.
It has been established that much of the oil and gas occurs in deltaic deposits; therefore,
buried ancient deltas are very important. This fact was recognized more than twenty years
ago by Houston geologists who promoted studies of modern deltas as an aid in finding
ancient deltas. The results of investigations of recent sediments and faunas were
successfully applied in petroleum exploration in the Gulf Coast and other basins.
Deltaic deposits as petroleum reservoirs
Deltas contain significant volumes of hydrocarbons worldwide. Major petroleum provinces
include the Niger Delta in West Africa, the Mahakam Delta in Borneo, the Caspian Sea, and
the Maracaibo Basin in Venezuela.
Deltaic deposits are commonly preserved in the geological record as thick, expanded
sections of predominantly clastic sedimentary facies. As already mentioned, these deposits
are of great economic importance. They contain vast reserves of hydrocarbons, both solid,
in the form of coal, and fluid, as gas and oil. Because deltaic sediments are commonly
rapidly deposited, with little reworking, organic matter is preserved in them. When buried
and heated, this organic matter may generate oil and gas. In humid climates, the
waterlogged surfaces of deltas are colonized by lush vegetation that is preserved in
anaerobic marshes and swamps. These environments are sites of formations of peat that
can accumulate to significant thicknesses due to the high subsidence rates that prevail in
deltas. When beds of peat are buried and heated, they metamorphose into lignite (brown
coal), then bituminous coal, and finally anthracite. The conversion of peat into moderate-
to high-grade coal involves a compaction ratio of ~ 10:1. Most coal beds are laterally
continuous and relate to episodes of delta abandonment. In plain view, the geometry of
coal beds may be irregular and is closely controlled by the depositional environment of the
parent marsh (Figure 1). However, major coal beds in deltaic successions often relate to
episodes of delta abandonment and are therefore laterally continuous coal beds that
blanket underlying deposits. Most of the coal deposits of the world occur in deltaic
deposits of Carboniferous age, and most of the lignite (brown coal) deposits of the world
occur in Tertiary deltas. Deltas are often major petroleum systems . This is because a delta
is a natural mechanism for depositing large volumes of sand (potential petroleum
reservoirs) that prograde out over organic-rich muds (potential source rocks).
Furthermore, deltas generate their own petroleum traps. These include the diapiric mud
lumps, growth faults, and roll-over anticlinal structures. Deltas also contain a wide range
of potential stratigraphic traps, such as sand-filled channels and delta front bars (Figure 2).
The Tertiary–Holocene Niger and Mississippi deltas are major petroleum systems that
illustrate these juxtapositions of source and reservoir rocks, and this range of trapping
styles.
What makes deltaic systems so important?
Deltas have proven to be important worldwide oil and gas provinces for two main reasons.
First, they are point sources from which sediment is introduced onto continental shelves
and into marginal basins, where the interaction of fluvial and basinal processes frequently
results in favorable associations of reservoir, source, and seal facies. Second, the
progradation of deltas forms a geomorphic bulge that projects seaward and allows land
and shallow offshore drilling rigs to reach deep targets that could only be reached by more
expensive rigs in deeper water areas adjacent to the delta. This paper reports that
significant hydrocarbons have been discovered in at least 17 deltaic provinces worldwide.
Almost 30 billion bbl of oil and more than 100 tcf of gas have been produced from these
deltaic provinces, which contain estimated ultimate reserves of more than 50 billion bbl of
oil and 320 tcf of gas. Fields with reserves greater than 500 million bbl of oil occur in five
deltaic basins, and fields with more than 100 million bbl of oil have been found in 13 deltas.
Future exploration will focus on deepwater delta-front environments and smaller deltas in
more remote areas with hostile drilling environments, such as those in the circum-arctic
region.
Deltas are often gas reservoirs
Many deltaic reservoirs, particularly long-lived Tertiary to present-day delta areas, contain
more gas than oil. This is because they can be particularly rich in coals and woody kerogen,
which form gas-prone humid source material. Gas fields are found in the Mackenzie, Nile,
and Irrawady deltas, for instance. Deltas can contain oil or mixed oil and gas where
sandstones interfinger with a marine source rock.

Figure 1. Sketches illustrating the common occurrence of beds of coal in deltaic settings. Note that to predict the
geometry of an individual coal bed it is important to diagnose the subenvironment, rather than the overall depositional
environment of the associated sediments. Channel abandonment coals, for example, occurs in fluvial, deltaic, and
intertidal settings. Note also that coal geometry is controlled not only by its depositional environment, but also by
subsequent erosion.

Figure 2. Diagrammatic cross-section to illustrate common trapping styles in deltaic petroleum systems.

References:
1 https://wiki.aapg.org/Deltaic_reservoirs
2 https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/deltaic-deposit(T. Elliott,
in Encyclopedia of Geology, 2005)
3 The Geological Importance of Deltas, E. H. Rainwater