The sandstones of the Bhuban Formation (Miocene) exposed in the Jampui hills of Tripura Fold Belt, India has been studied for provenance, tectonic setting and paleoclimate using the petrography, heavy mineral assemblage and clay mineral studies. The detrital mode of the sandstones indicate that the sediments consists predominantly of detrital quartz (avg. 92.19%), with subordinate proportions of feldspar (avg. 4.55%) and rock fragments (avg. 3.25%). The provenance discrimination diagrams depict the derivation of the detritus from both plutonic and metamorphic source rocks having affinity to continental block provenance. The plots of QFR and semi quantitative weathering index of the clastics support a moderate degree of paleoweathering in the source area under humid climatic condition. The presence of zircon, tourmaline, rutile, kyanite, epidote, sillimanite and garnet in the Bhuban sandstones is ascribed to the provenance of plutonic and metamorphic rocks. Dominance of zircon in the heavy mineral assemblage and the ZTR index values (75.13% avg.) indicate towards moderate degree of maturity with long distance of transport. The study of the shale samples by XRD and SEM analyses shows the dominance of illite over kaolinite and montmorillonite. The presence of minor amount of montmorillonite may suggest the addition of tuff and volcanic ash in the sediments under alkaline environment.

Upper Assam Shelf is one of the major on-shore hydrocarbon producing basin in India. It comprises sediments of upper Paleocene to recent and rest unconformably over the Granitic Basement. The Barail Group (Oligocene) of rocks in this basin is characterized by hydrocarbon source rock as well as reservoir rock. The Barail Group of rocks is divided into Arenaceous Unit (lower) and Argillaceous Unit (upper) in Upper Assam basin. The Arenaceous Unit is considered as good reservoir rock, where as the upper Argillaceous Unit is considered as source rock. The aim of the present research work is to characterize the Barail Arenaceous Unit of Makum-North Hapjan oil field with respect to its mineralogical constituents and textural properties. The present study reveals that the Barail reservoir sandstones in Makum-North Hapjan oil field are sublithic-arenite varieties with moderately well sorted texture and deposited in a fluvio-deltaic environment under the intermittent influence of transgressive and regressive effects. The sediments were derived from multiple provenances primarily comprising of reworked sediments and low rank metamorphic rocks.

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