Blowin’ In the Wind: From Mississippi Valley Loess Deposits to Buried
Desert Treasure
Mark E. Mathisen (’74)
Viking GeoScience, Ltd., 4544 Catina Ln., Dallas, TX 75229
Thanks to Doc Anderson’s Saturday field trips my musical interests
started “Blowin’ In The Wind”, giving way to a geologic career focused in recent
years on the search for ancient wind-blown dune sand reservoirs. Among the
various geologic deposits studied on the field trips, exposures of wind-blown
loess and Sangamon Soil would prove to be especially providential. Ancient
fossil soils such as the Sangamon soil are important horizons to recognize and
interpret in archaeological geology research. Graduate research in stratigraphy at
Iowa State University with Carl Vondra included a minor in soil morphology and
genesis to aid archeological geology research projects in Kenya, the Philippines
and Spain. Volcanoes in Kenya and the Philippines produced volcanic deposits
useful for correlating and dating archaeological sites. Work on these volcanic
deposits, which are known to experience rapid changes in mineralogy and
cementation, led to petrographic research with Mobil to improve hydrocarbon
reservoir predictions before drilling. With continuing subsurface geologic
research at Mobil, seismic data became an indispensable tool to define
stratigraphy, structure and rock properties between wells and across basins.
Progress with imaging, interpreting and finding ancient wind-blown Rotliegendes
Formation dune sands in Germany suggests similar good quality, thick dune sand
reservoirs can be found in other sedimentary basins with similar geology.
Independent research with Viking GeoScience indicates numerous wind-blown
dune deposits form reservoirs yet to be discovered in several U.S. basins. Source,
seal and trapping conditions indicate that hydrocarbon volumes can be worldclass – a resource treasure waiting to be discovered.