Analysis of floodplain sedimentation, avulsion style and channelized fluvial sandbody distribution in an upper coastal plain reservoir: Middle Jurassic Ness Formation, Brent Field, UK North Sea

Numerical models and recent outcrop case studies of alluvial-to-coastal-plain strata suggest that autogenic avulsion can control the stacking density and architecture of channelized fluvial sandbodies. The application of these models to subsurface well data was tested by the analysis of upper coastal plain deposits of the late Bajocian Ness Formation in the Brent Field reservoir, UK North Sea. These coastal plain deposits accumulated during the progradation and retrogradation of the wave-dominated ‘Brent Delta’. Sedimentological facies analysis and palaeosol characterization in cores were used to interpret the styles of palaeochannel avulsion. These results were then compared with the dimensions and distributions of channelized fluvial sandbodies that had been quantified by spatial statistical tools (lacunarity, Besag’s L function) applied to interpretative correlation panels between closely spaced wells. The results indicate that the distributions of channelized sandbodies may plausibly have been generated by avulsions and that they influence sandbody connectivity and pressure depletion patterns. Intervals of upper coastal plain strata with relatively wide sandbodies that display some clustering in their stratigraphic architecture are associated with a high proportion of avulsions by incision and annexation in core samples. Such intervals display relatively good vertical pressure communication and relatively slow, uniform pressure depletio