Forums and Special Sessions

Plenary Session — Canada: Our Resources to International Exploration

A special session with invited speakers from government, institutions and the energy industry intended to inform and provide an overview of the current state of the Canadian energy industry and the current state and the future potential of our undeveloped resources and the work of Canadian independents as they explore around the world.

The lineup includes invited speakers from government, institutions and the energy industry:

• Pete Stark, Vice President, Industry Relations, IHS Energy
• John Harper, Director, Calgary Branch, Geological Survey of Canada
• George Eynon, Board of Directors, Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board
• Alex Ferguson, Commissioner, British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission
• Wes Foote, Assistant Deputy Minister Petroleum Development, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador
• Heather Rogan, Manager Global Exploration Planning & Portfolio, Nexen Petroleum International Co.
• Richard Herbert, Executive Vice President Exploration, Talisman
  Energy
• Ian Young, Vice-President, New Resource Plays, Cenovus Energy

Special Lecture — Burgess Shale Tales—Mud Volcanism and Chemosynthetic Communities on the Middle Cambrian Seafloor of Southeastern British Columbia

This special lecture will feature Paul A. Johnston of Mount Royal University speaking on Mud Volcanism and Chemosynthetic Communities on the Middle Cambrian Seafloor of Southeastern British Columbia. His co-authors are Kimberley J. Johnston, Palaeontographica Canadiana and Stanley B. Keith, MagmaChem.

Famous for exquisitely preserved “soft-bodied” fossils, the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of southeastern British Columbia figures importantly in discussions of early animal evolution associated with the “Cambrian Explosion.” Until recently, research has focused mostly on the fossils, but sedimentological and structural observations reveal an intriguing story. Recent studies show that metre- to decametre-thick lithosomes composed of nearly pure clinochlore are relatively common in the Burgess Shale, at or near a fault contact with Cambrian platformal carbonates on the Kicking Horse Rim. Because clinochlore is a Mg-rich product of hydrothermal alteration of mafic minerals, it could not have been deposited by normal basinal sedimentary processes. We propose that it arrived at the Cambrian seafloor via mud volcanos.

Seeping hydrogen sulfide-rich brines, arriving with the mud, fueled microbial chemosynthesis that, in turn, attracted animal communities now preserved as localized concentrations of fossils. Regional dolomitization and ore emplacement including Pb-Zn and magnesite can also be explained by brine migration in a syngenetic hydrothermal system. The evulsed mud and brines were probably generated from serpentinization associated with subducting oceanic lithosphere along the north (now west) edge of Laurentia. Consequently, the Burgess Shale is not necessarily a “typical” marine shale, and most of its fossil assemblages do not represent “normal” distal shelf communities. Rather, the Burgess Shale records deposition in a mud volcano field and preserves theoldest known examples of chemosynthetic animal communities in the fossil record.

Special Lecture — Geology of a Major SAGD Bitumen Development — A Case Study from Long Lake, Northeastern Alberta

This special lecture will feature Dale A. Leckie of Nexen Inc. with co-authors Milovan Fustic, Nexen Inc., and Christopher Seibel, Nexen Inc.

Nexen Inc. and OPTI Canada Inc. have constructed the largest integrated SAGD (Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage) operation in the world to recover a portion of the billions of barrels of bitumen in place on oil sand leases in northeastern Alberta. The sole purpose of this infrastructure is to recover and upgrade bitumen trapped within sands of the Cretaceous McMurray Formation. With the billions of dollars required to acquire land, delineate deposits, drill SAGD well pairs, build steam generation facilities and an upgrader, it is critical that the geological and geochemical complexity of the reservoir be fully understood.

Since the inception of this project, Nexen has been committed to developing a thorough understanding of the deposits of the McMurray Formation through an integrated workflow of detailed geological, seismic and geochemical data sets. Dale’s talk will summarize and integrate the broad range of geosciences that are critical to secure the feedstock to feed the Nexen/OPTI upgrader culminating in a high-quality 39º APG synthetic crude.

Dale Leckie , Chief Geologist at Nexen Inc., is a specialist in sedimentology, sequence stratigraphy, basin analysis and unconventional hydrocarbons. He has received numerous awards from AAPG, SEPM and CSPG and has co-edited Memoirs and special publications for those societies. He is past President of SEPM and Associate Editor for AAPG Bulletin.