By SUSAN EATON
EXPLORER Correspondent

Initiatives Encourage Exploration

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Natural Gas Drives Candian Effort

Breaking Arctic Challenges

Canadian government initiatives have proved pivotal in kick-starting renewed oil and gas exploration in the country's northern areas -- specifically the Mackenzie Delta and the adjacent Beaufort Sea.

The evolution of exploration thinking has been led by research scientists at the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC).

The GSC, a division of Natural Resources Canada, has taken a lead role in the federal government's Northern Resource Development Program. To support the consortium of up to nine oil and gas companies, the GSC has assembled a team of 20 people, including 13 research scientists, for a five-year study of the hydrocarbon resources of the BMB.

The GSC has leveraged on its in-house wealth of experience -- the Calgary-based scientists have, on average, 15 to 20 years of experience in the north. The GSC team also includes seasoned veterans with more than 30 years of northern experience.

The consortium has access to cores and drilling samples for northern wells that are housed at the GSC facility in Calgary. In addition, the facility boasts the only organic geochemistry and petrology lab in Canada.

Issler's group is using the base of the permafrost as a zero datum for its thermal modeling. However, the permafrost varies by up to 800 meters across the BMB.

Resistively logs can be used to determine permafrost thickness. The GSC is trying to predict the top of the overpressure zone in the basin. According to Issler, the top of the overpressure varies by up to three kilometers over the basin, causing potential drilling problems and reservoir quality issues.

He has documented cases of secondary overpressure where fluids have been discharged from deeper sediments and have moved upwards, charging overlying sediments.

Larry Lane, a structural geologist with the GSC, is creating a digital, GIS-based database for the BMB that incorporates his field work and seismic data interpretations dating back to the early 1980s. He's archiving his mosquito-encrusted field notes gathered 20 years ago, and he's indexing fossil localities described by GSC emeritus geologists that date back to the 1950s.

Lane described how his horizons have been broadened by working with industry.

"Because they're new to the basin, they ask very fundamental questions," Lane said, "and that forces you to continually reassess your basic assumptions."

-- SUSAN EATON