The State of Texas Advanced Resource Recovery (STARR) program held a successful workshop and field trip, discussing the Wilcox Group, with over 30 company representatives in attendance. STARR and collaborators have been conducting research during the last two years to update the sedimentological, biostratigraphic, and chemostratigraphic characterization of the onshore Wilcox Group. Results of this research will provide an update to challenging onshore stratigraphic correlations, improve the understanding of Wilcox depositional trends, and unravel the true paleoclimate significance of the onshore Wilcox Group. These results will also allow researchers to correlate the onshore and offshore components of the Wilcox source-to-sink system with a higher degree of confidence.
The Wilcox Group is a Paleocene and Eocene stratigraphic unit present in the onshore and offshore portions of the greater Gulf of Mexico Basin. The onshore Wilcox Group has been targeted for hydrocarbon exploration and production for many decades. Most recently, companies have been looking at Wilcox onshore units as potential targets for CO2 sequestration and H2 storage in porous media and for its geothermal energy potential. In addition, active oil and gas exploration targeting Wilcox reservoirs continues among smaller Texas operators.
The STARR workshop covered aspects associated with depositional environments, palynological characterization, and geochemical fingerprinting of both cores and outcrops. STARR researchers also took workshop participants to visit Bastrop outcrops, where STARR researchers recently documented the presence of the Paleocene to Eocene transition using palynology and isotope data. Participants had an opportunity to examine depositional environments and stratigraphic relationships in the uppermost part of the Wilcox Group and lowermost part of the Claiborne Group.
STARR research on the Wilcox Group is led by Dr. Peter Flaig, Dr. Iulia Olariu, and Dr. Lorena Moscardelli in conjunction with external collaborators from Ellington Resources, Petrostrat, the Deep Time Institute, and Astra Stratigraphics.
The team will present more technical updates in the upcoming AAPG IMAGE ’23 meeting in Houston so stay tuned for future announcements!
