Oil Exploration

Suriname exploration alert! Apache Corporation has made a discovery at Baja, the first find on Block 53 where it drilled a pair of dry holes in 2015 and 2017. This is a light oil discovery with a GOR similar to that seen at ExxonMobil's Liza in Guyana. PETRONAS and CEPSA are partners in Block 53. At the same time however, Apache announced a dry hole at the TotalEnergies-operated Dikkop-1 well on Block 58.

Attention will remain fixed on Guyana and Suriname, with both countries preparing bid rounds for next year. Exploring the Atlantic Margin is a hot topic, following the success offshore Namibia earlier this year and success for Uruguay in licensing out new acreage in recent months.

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, declare discovery. Italian oil and gas giant and its partner made a significant gas discovery in the well in , offshore Cyprus, 160 km southeast.

One important question is to answer how it is possible to tie seismic / well and geological scales? Is sub-seismic resolution a realistic issue ?

Through the essence of exploration seismology, a limitation appears from the wavelength of the transmitted wavelet . In many surveys, the limitation on minimum spatial resolution is 25 meters for shallow depths and 75 meters for deeper reflections. In the meantime software claim is to generate fracture skin in order of 10 meters for further use in reservoir modelling !!! Or very minor facies changes in order of tens of meters !

In this post, I hope to receive your ideas based on your experiences and methodologies! “how real is the sub-seismic resolution?!”



By Hashmei, factulty member of geophysics, Unversity of Tahran.

Did the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs have a sibling? Crater in West Africa hints maybe.
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A new impact crater dating to 66 million years ago points to another big impact at the end of the Cretaceous.

A likely asteroid impact crater from the latter days of the dinosaurs has been discovered off the coast of West Africa, raising questions about whether the asteroid that wiped out the dinos may have had a smaller sibling that struck around the same time.

The crater, hidden under about 3,000 feet (900 meters) of water and 1,300 feet (400 m) of sediment, hasn't been directly studied yet; it's only been detected in reconstructions of the ocean bed made using seismic waves. To prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the crater is indeed from an asteroid, scientists will need to drill into the structure and find minerals shocked by extreme heat and pressure. But the crater's shape does point to an extraterrestrial origin, said David Kring, principal scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute who was not involved in the current study but was one of the discoverers of the Chicxulub impact site, the crater left by the asteroid that killed the nonavian dinosaurs about 66 million years ago.

subsurface normal faults with syn-rift growth strata

By Al ghuraybi

Peak revenue: $2.5 trillion in cash to flow from oil and gas sector to government coffers in 2022.

Access the full PR here: https://okt.to/JGFmrV

Troll gas field flat spot related to a gas water contact (positive standard polarity with black representing a peak). Note also the change in reflectivity at the top of the fault block (dimming of black peak) as well as the apparent change in dominant frequency beneath the flat spot.

Simm, R., Bacon, M., & Bacon, M. (2014). Seismic Amplitude: An interpreter's handbook. Cambridge University Press.

Map Of Pangea With Modern-Day Borders.
“As volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occasionally remind us, the earth beneath our feet is constantly on the move.
Continental plates only move around 1-4 inches per year, so we don’t notice the tectonic forces that are continually reshaping the surface of our planet. But on a long enough timeline, those inches add up to big changes in the way landmasses on Earth are configured.
 [This] map, by Massimo Pietrobon, is a look back to when all land on the planet was arranged into a supercontinent called Pangea. Pietrobon’s map is unique in that it overlays the approximate borders of present day countries to help us understand how Pangea broke apart to form the world that we know today.
Pangea was the latest in a line of supercontinents in Earth’s history.
Pangea began developing over 300 million years ago, eventually making up one-third of the earth’s surface. The remainder of the planet was an enormous ocean known as Panthalassa.
As time goes by, scientists are beginning to piece together more information on the climate and patterns of life on the supercontinent. Similar to parts of Central Asia today, the center of the landmass is thought to have been arid and inhospitable, with temperatures reaching 113ºF (45ºC). The extreme temperatures revealed by climate simulations are supported by the fact that very few fossils are found in the modern day regions that once existed in the middle of Pangea. The strong contrast between the Pangea supercontinent and Panthalassa is believed to have triggered intense cross-equatorial monsoons.

Time to dig out the old Western's Christmas card again!
Merry Christmas everybody, stay safe!

Credited to Darren McDonald

By .fellas

When you become a real geologist, you will get better at choosing colors

what do you think?

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Open-source] Python package for 3D structural geological modeling

GemPy is a free and open-source geological modeling software that supports implicit and stochastic modeling. It can create sophisticated 3D geological models of folded structures, fault networks, and unconformities.

Links are in the comments.

                   

PS: Follow me, Ruslan Miftakhov, to learn about AI applications in Oil and Gas Industry.

Geological Face

Some stunning lamination in the building stone of a bridge on the Middlewood Way, Marple. Not sure if these are Carboniferous or, perhaps, something younger…

Huge ice age seafloor channels beneath the North Sea revealed in unprecedented detail by 3D imaging - New collaborative research published today explores tunnel valleys, remnants of huge rivers that were the ‘plumbing system’ of the ancient ice sheets as they melted in response to rising air temperatures, which provide clues to how ice sheets react to a warming climate.

Lead author James Kirkham, from British Antarctic Survey and the University of Cambridge, explains:

“The origin of these channels was unresolved for over a century. This discovery will help us better understand the ongoing retreat of present-day glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland.

“In the way that we can leave footprints in the sand, glaciers leave an imprint on the land upon which they flow. Our new cutting-edge data gives us important markers of deglaciation.”

Read the full news story here: https://lnkd.in/gzWtyzn6



📸 Comparing the resolution of the new high-resolution 3D seismic reflection data to previous 3D seismic data from this region.

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Tunnel valley infill and genesis revealed by high-resolution 3-D seismic data
James D. Kirkham; Kelly A. Hogan; Robert D. Larter; Ed Self; Ken Games; Mads Huuse; Margaret A. Stewart; Dag Ottesen; Neil S. Arnold; Julian A. Dowdeswell
Geology (2021)
https://doi.org/10.1130/G49048.1

Landforms produced beneath former ice sheets offer insights into inaccessible subglacial processes and present analogues for how current ice masses may evolve in a warming climate. Large subglacial channels cut by meltwater erosion (tunnel valleys [TVs]) have the potential to provide valuable empirical constraints for numerical ice-sheet models concerning realistic melt rates, water routing, and the interplay between basal hydrology and ice dynamics. However, the information gleaned from these features has thus far been limited by an inability to adequately resolve their internal structures. We use high-resolution three-dimensional (HR3-D) seismic data (6.25 m bin size, ~4 m vertical resolution) to analyze the infill of buried TVs in the North Sea. The HR3-D seismic data represent a step-change in our ability to investigate the mechanisms and rates at which TVs are formed and filled. Over 40% of the TVs examined contain buried glacial landforms including eskers, crevasse-squeeze ridges, glacitectonic structures, and kettle holes. As most of these landforms had not previously been detected using conventional 3-D seismic reflection methods, the mechanisms that formed them are currently absent from models of TV genesis. The ability to observe such intricate internal structures opens the possibility of using TVs to reconstruct the hydrological regimes of former mid-latitude ice sheets as analogues for contemporary ones.

Clear DHls observed in the fold and thrust belt of the southern end of the Malvinas Basin

In the Malvinas Basin, syn-rift sediments contain Jurassic tuffs, lacustrine shales and sandstones of the Tobifera Formation, with the main source rocks shales of the Lower Inoceramus Formation.

Potential source rocks may also be found within the shales of the Springhill, Tobifera and Margas Verdes formations and although these are poorly understood, the lateral distribution of lacustrine shales within the syn-rift grabens is key to unlocking the charge story.

Searcher's reprocessing of 2D seismic data within the Malvinas Basin has vastly improved the imaging below the Base Cretaceous Unconformity, enabling detailed interpretation of the Jurassic source rock section to be undertaken.

Searcher has also undertaken a seismic facies mapping exercise in order to differentiate the lithology of the syn-rift section.

By integrating understanding of the conjugate South African margin, the results of the study give greater confidence in the underexplored Malvinas Basin, improving the confidence in the existence of a potential dual source working petroleum system outside of the Austral-Magallanes Basin.

The Brulpadda discovery in South Africa's Southern Outeniqua Basin suggests that there is significant unexplored potential in the Malvinas Basin with clear DHIs, similar to those encountered in the Brulpadda and Luiperd discoveries, that are imaged on the below reprocessed 2D seismic data.

Read and explore more about Argentina here: https://lnkd.in/gSMqNfA

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New Gas Shows in Campos and ExxonMobil’s Titã Wildcat
 
Last week, August 12th, Petrobras notified gas shows on the block C-M-346 (operated in partnership with ExxonMobil) after almost 3 months of drilling. This is the company’s third HC notification in 2021 – others being the Urissanê prospect in Campos and the well 1-BRSA-1379D-ESS in Espírito Santo – and the second from the Petrobras-ExxonMobil 50/50 consortium, which acquired several blocks outside the pre-salt polygon in Campos on the 14th Bid Round.

A little further south, it has been a week since the vessel West Saturn moved from the Opal prospect to Titã (ExxonMobil with partner Qatar Petroleum), in order to drill the company’s second wildcat on their on-going drilling campaign. A third well is expected to be drilled in Sergipe-Alagoas (Exxon with partners Enauta and Murphy Oil Corporation).
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Useful chart for quick look log interpretation by (Berhooz Esrafili-Dizaji)
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By R. Hudec, I Solo.

We have identified seven mechanisms by which mobile shales can pierce their roofs. The operative piercement mechanism depends on mobile-shale viscosity, roof strength and stress state. For mobile shales at depths of several kilometres, three mechanisms are possible: fracture piercement, thrust piercement and ductile “piercement.” However, injection up fractures and faults appears to be the dominant mechanism by which mobile shales rise towards the surface. In this process, mobile shales behave similar to magmas rising through the Earth's crust. Nearer the surface, a wider range of piercement mechanisms becomes possible: passive piercement, reactive piercement, active piercement and erosional piercement. These mechanisms all have salt-tectonics analogues. Although shale tectonics and salt tectonics share common piercement mechanisms, in many cases the resulting structures are different. This is because near-surface mobile shales can have much lower viscosities than salt. Mobile shales that reach the surface extrude very rapidly, in many cases leading to caldera collapse of the underlying shale chamber. This instability in the near-surface means that long-term, stable growth of passive shale diapirs is unlikely, in contrast with the behaviour of salt. A key question in seismic interpretation of mobile-shale structures is whether large-volume mobile-shale diapirs exist. We show that both active piercement and ductile “piercement” can create such structures. Both of these mechanisms create steeply upturned beds on diapir flanks, which are diagnostic. However, active shale diapirs appear to be rare, and ductile “piercements” are not documented. We therefore suggest that large-volume shale diapirs should be interpreted with caution on seismic data.

Michael R. Hudec, Juan I. Soto
First published: 17 July 2021
https://doi.org/10.1111/bre.12586

By Kerr
Why are depth migration velocities significantly more critical than time migration velocities? There are numerous examples showing the imaging uplift provided by depth migration. But the fundamental importance of depth velocities is not always shown nor is it always obvious. I made the below figures to help demonstrate.
 
The same input gather is fed into a time migration (pstm) and a depth migration (psdm). We’re assuming flat reflectors, consistent velocities and no anisotropy. Two migration velocities are tested: one velocity is too slow and the other velocity is too fast; we transition velocities in between. The migration velocity that is too slow will trend up at migrated far offsets and the migration velocity that is too fast will trend down at migrated far offsets. The better migration velocity will output flat gathers. This is all true for both the time migration gathers and the depth migration gathers.
 
However there is a stark difference. For the time migration, the zero offset and the resultant stack remain at the same two-way reflection time. The time structure of the reflector would not be affected by a slight difference in migration velocity, as shown in the top right image. The stack quality would be affected, but that’s not what is being demonstrated.

Soooo... Which geologist hacked into Google and swapped out the satellite imagery for a geological map?

40.11, 78.07 - imagery date 7/5/2009


Tweet by .judithhubbard

Bottom Simulating Reflectors in Global Frontier Hydrocarbon Exploration
Karyna Rodriguez, Neil Hodgson, Searcher Seismic and Julia Davies, Discover Geoscience.

Determining the geothermal gradient in an undrilled region has direct implications for basin modelling and remains one the largest areas of uncertainty in frontier basin exploration today. Bottom Simulating Reflectors (BSRs) occur at the base of a shallow gas hydrate layer in many of the world’s deepwater basins and by calculating the geothermal gradient from the seafloor to base hydrate, quantitative and qualitative inference of the deeper heat flow can assist basin modellers in their work. However, BSRs do not always simulate the seabed and such deviant behaviour can lead them to be interpreted as ‘anything but’ the base of the gas hydrate. Yet such black swans suggest BSRs may be even more useful in mapping variations in heat flow and geotherm than we had previously recognised.
Seismic Foldout Line

West–East Line from the Laurabada 3D located near the Eastern Field Reefs, Gulf of Papua. PSDM processed displayed in TWT.
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Structural geologist will think differently….. kink fold..

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A group of University of Wyoming professors and students has identified an unusual belt of igneous rocks that stretches for over 2,000 miles from British Columbia, Canada, to Sonora, Mexico.

The rock belt runs through Idaho, Montana, Nevada, southeast California and Arizona.

“Geoscientists usually associate long belts of igneous rocks with chains of volcanoes at subduction zones, like Mount Shasta, Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainer,” says Jay Chapman, an assistant professor in UW’s Department of Geology and Geophysics. “What makes this finding so interesting and mysterious is that this belt of igneous rocks is located much farther inland, away from the edge of the continent, and doesn’t contain any evidence for producing volcanoes. In fact, all of the melting to generate the igneous rocks originally took place deep underground, five to 10 miles beneath the surface.”

Chapman is lead author of a paper, titled “The North American Cordilleran Anatectic Belt,” which was published online in February in the journal Earth-Science Reviews. The print version will be published this month.

The research project is a joint effort involving UW; Andy Barth, a professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis; and Gordon Haxel, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist based in Flagstaff, Ariz. Other UW students involved were graduate students Brandi Lawler, of Gordon, Wisc.; Shane Scoggin, of Reston, Va.; Nathan Swaim, of Monument, Colo.; and Adam Trzinski, of Manteno, Ill.; and undergraduate Hannah Wiley, of Sheridan.

Your comment for the mother nature..

Significant oil discovery close to the Fram field in the North Sea