| MAFLA* Formation |
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*MAFLA - Mississippi,
Alabama & Florida
(Also Applicable to
East Louisiana)
LA Cib hazz Discovery
THE MOST RELEVANT MAFLA / BWB CONTENT AVAILABLE AT ANY INDUSTRY WEBSITE
NOW INCLUDING SPECIAL REPORTS ON THE UNCONVENTIONAL BROWN DENSE LIMESTONE AND THE TUSCALOOSA MARINE SHALE TRENDS
The drilling of many thousands of wells throughout the United States Gulf Coast has yielded an incredible body of knowledge about those stratigraphic units that do not outcrop in the greater Gulf Coast area. This information is derived principally from sample cuttings, electric and radioactive logging devices lowered into the wellbore, and mudlog and sample log descriptions.
The interpretation of this large subsurface database has yielded vital and intriguing clues about the formation of the Gulf of Mexico, the uplifting and subsequent erosion of entire mountain ranges, and the tremendous impact of the Mississippi River and other similar ancestral streams that reshaped the land and deposited the immense layers of sand, silt and shale that filled the Gulf Coast Basin and later became hosts for large deposits of oil, gas, and coal.
The subsurface record chronicles the advance and retreat of the sea across the land, the precipitation of incredible volumes of salt in a once-arid climate, and the distribution of thick lava and beds of volcanic ash from the eruption of numerous volcanoes. There is also compelling evidence of catastrophic global events (such as the ones that heralded the end of the Permian and the Cretaceous), recorded in the sediment layers associated with those geologic milestones and penetrated by thousands of wellbores - drilled not only for oil and gas, but also water and other natural resources.
Sadly, much of this information is lost every day as paper logs and sample cuttings are destroyed through disposal or neglect. The public does not realize the value of this great resource, or the tragedy of its loss.
Since existing well data contributes critical information to the domestic explorer, its unavailability can delay or even prevent the drilling of many new exploratory wells in the Gulf Coast.
When one considers the sobering reality that most of the exploration for new oil and gas reserves in the Lower 48 is conducted today by small independents like Vision Exploration - and not larger corporations - the preservation of all subsurface data should be immediately recognized as a very important individual, corporate and governmental objective.
Whether you happen to be a student, a colleague, or just a curious observer, we hope that you will find some value in Vision's brief Formation Summaries (links to which are shown at above left) that focus on important subsurface reservoirs in the eastern United States Gulf Coast and Black Warrior Basin regions. Vision's Formation Summaries will first concentrate upon those reservoirs that we are most familiar with. We plan to add other reservoir summaries and items of interest (type logs, etc.) as time and experience allows.
Visitors to this section are advised that Vision's online geological summaries are provided in good faith for purely informational purposes and as helpful commentaries, but have not necessarily been peer reviewed by professional geological editorial committees or trade publications. Our advice to those who wish to learn more about the topics covered in our summaries is: investigate those peer-reviewed articles that have been published regarding such topics, and/or contact us for more information. That having been said, Vision is proud to announce that Steve Walkinshaw's most recent peer-reviewed presentation, “The Jackson Gas Rock, a Unique Upper Cretaceous (Selma Chalk) Lithofacies, Mississippi”, was recently awarded the 2018 First Place Thomas A. Philpott Excellence of Presentation Award by the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies (GCAGS). Steve became only the second Mississippi-based geologist to receive this prestigious award, 58 years after his former employer, Dudley Hughes, received the award in 1960.