Student Chapter & IBA - coordinated by David Contreras
Delft SCs Mini-symposium on
‘Deep-water Sedimentation, Faults and their Impact on Hydrocarbon Production’
John Walsh.
On Friday the 15th of October, the AAPG student chapter Delft held a minisymposium titled ‘Deep-water sedimentation, faults and their impact on hydrocarbon production’ featuring senior lecturers from Ireland, Norway and the United Kingdom. Prof. Dr. John Walsh, Dr. Ole Martinsen and Prof. Dr. Bill McCaffrey presented some of the highlights of their current research to an audience of students and academic staff from both in- and outside Delft University of Technology and professionals of several oil and gas related companies in the Netherlands.
The three lecturers were visiting TU Delft on the occasion of a PhD-thesis defence and happily agreed to contribute to a mini-symposium to be held on the same day. The idea for this came from Prof. Dr. Stefan Luthi (head of the department of Geotechnology, TU Delft) and Dr. Rick Donselaar (Applied Geology, TU Delft), who left the organization and promotion of the event in the hands of the student chapter. Thanks to financial support from the department, attending the mini-symposium was free of charge.
As the event was thought to be of interest to students, academic staff and professionals from outside TU Delft as well, it was promoted through a range of companies and geological organisations in the Netherlands. The attendance of people from outside the university made for a good mix of students and professionals which, apart from offering relevant activities, is one of the aims of the student chapter.
Ole Martinsen
After Prof. Dr. Stefan Luthi had introduced the speakers, Prof. Dr. John Walsh (Structural Geology, Fault Analysis Group, University College of Dublin) kicked off with a lively talk entitled ‘Geometry and growth of faults and their impact on hydrocarbon flow in clastic sequences’. He discussed the main characteristics of fault zones associated with normal faults and a quantitive model which reconciles fault zone structure with the repetitive operation of a number of processes. He concluded with a description of new approaches which can incorporate the effects of faults in clastic sequences in hydrocarbon exploration and production models.
Bill McCaffrey
Drinks afterwards
Subsequently Dr. Ole Martinsen (Vice-President Exploration, Statoil ASA) talked about ‘Deep-water stratigraphy predicted from ancient onshore catchments: principles and perspectives’. During this talk he discussed procedures for modelling antecedent topography and their uncertainties, after which he concluded that previously distinct geological processes and methods can be integrated for an understanding of complete geological systems and their processes and products.
Prof. Dr. Bill McCaffrey (Clastic Sedimentology, University of Leeds) rounded off the mini-symposium with a talk on ‘Submarine channel-levee feedback mechanisms’. He showed the audience a physical modelling approach for investigating the characteristic form of aggradational submarine channel landscapes. Hereby brine- or sediment-driven turbidity currents are let into a symmetrical sinuous channel model. It can be concluded from the experiments that the observed decrease in levee heights arises through a feedback mechanism adjusted to the size spectrum of inbound flows.
The mini-symposium was concluded with drinks for all 55 participants. The general opinion of the attendees was very positive both on the very interesting lectures and on the organisation. The AAPG student chapter Delft is planning to organise similar events in the future and would like to thank the lecturers and attendees for their contributions to the minisymposium.