Lyons Sandstone, Denver Basin (13)

Comments on Geologic Parameters

13 Rock/Water Reaction:

The Lyons is a quartzose sandstone ranging from red to gray, with fine to coarse, well-sorted grains. Cement includes silica, anhydrite, and calcite. The red facies contains iron oxide, quartz overgrowths, and calcite cements (Hubert, 1960). The gray facies that occurs deep in the basin has dolomite and anhydrite cement and little iron oxide and calcite (Lee and Bethke, 1994). The gray facies formed by ground-water flow resulting from the Laramide Uplift of the Front Range during the Tertiary. In the Ming-Kuo and Bethke (1994) model, the saline ground water flowed eastward through the Pennsylvanian Fountain Formation and then discharged into the Lyons Sandstone. The saline water mixed with the ground water in the Lyons Formation, driving a reaction that dissolved calcite and precipitated dolomite and anhydrite. The distribution of petroleum reservoirs is related to diagenetic cementation patterns (Levandowski and others, 1973).

13 Reference:

Lee, M. L., and Bethke, C., 1994, Groundwater flow, late cementation and petroleum accumulation in the Permian Lyons Sandstone, Denver Basin: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 78, no. 2, p. 227-237.

Levandowski, D., Kaley, M., and Smalley, R., 1973, Cementation in the Lyons Sandstone and its role in oil accumulation, Denver Basin, Colorado: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 57, no. 11, p. 2217-2244.