HomeScience

Science

Explorer Historical Highlights

By the time they are drilled, almost all exploratory ventures today will have been geotechnically, statistically and economically analyzed to estimate their ultimate recovery of oil or natural gas, or its EUR, and its present monetary value, or PV, given discovery. This process is generally known as “exploration risk analysis” and it evolved primarily as a response to an endemic problem: explorers were discovering less than half of the EURs they forecast for their investors.

Show more
American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Geophysical Corner

Generally, the fine-grained shale rocks are found to be composed of 50 to 70 percent clay, anywhere between 25 to 40 percent silt- and clay-sized quartz, and 5 percent of minerals including feldspars and carbonates, comprising the total rock volume. A variety of techniques such as X-ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopy and electron microscopy are available, which help us understand the type of clay minerals present in a shale sample.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

In 2017, AAPG celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding in Tulsa, Okla. This same year was also the 40th anniversary of the establishment the AAPG Energy Minerals Division. The EMD has evolved as an organization over the past 40 years to reflect the changes in the mix of resources fueling the world’s ever-increasing energy demand.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

November’s midterm elections in the United States brought a split decision and gave the country a divided Congress. The potential effect of the vote on the oil and gas industry and U.S. energy policy is also a toss-up, according to some analysts.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

An old joke used to be told in Israel: Why did Moses so unwittingly lead the Jewish people to the land of milk and honey and not to one of its petroleum-rich neighbors? Not anymore. In the last decade, giant gas fields have been discovered in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea offshore Israel, and offshore gas is rapidly becoming the main source of energy for power generation.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Over the past decade, Africa has steadily emerged one of the world’s leading playgrounds for oil and gas exploration.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Asia Pacific Blog

AAPG Asia Pacific will present our third learning event in Indonesia; after Bali and Bandung. This Geosciences Technology Workshop (GTW) will be held from 7-8 August 2019 in Bogor, Greater Jakarta. The theme is 'The Art of Hydrocarbon Prediction: Managing Uncertainties' and the committee is very enthusiastic about the program. In September, some members of the committee met with PT Pertamina,to seek their support for this event. Helmed by an advisory board and a technical committee, this event is currently welcoming abstracts before 15 January. Visit this link for more information on the event. https://www.aapg.org/global/asiapacific/events/workshop/ispreview/true/articleid/49102#152582144-program Please contact [email protected] for enquiries.

Show more
American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Asia Pacific Blog

This event is made for those geoscientists and geophysics, either professionals and students who enthusiastic with structural and property modeling. Date: Saturday-Sunday, 1-2 December 2018 Start: 09:00 - 15:00 WIB Venue: Rumah Indogeo - Jl. Opal 1 L/18, Permata Hijau, Jakarta 12210, Indonesia

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Middle East Blog

Once again, AAPG is bringing the geoscience community together with an exciting workshop taking place in Dubai. Register today for the Regional Variations in Charge Systems and the Impact on Petroleum Fluid Properties in Exploration GTW which will be held from 11-13 February 2019.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Learn! Blog

Welcome to an interview with Don Herman, Cordax, who discusses a new method for logging horizontal wells and for collecting more information useful for designing completion and stimulation programs.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

Paleozoic North America has experienced multiple mountain building events, from Ordovician to Permian, on all margins of the continent. These have had a profound effect on the resulting complex basins and their associated petroleum systems. Subsequent uplift, erosion and overprinting of these ancient systems impedes the direct observation of their tectonic history. However, the basin sedimentary records are more complete, and provide additional insights into the timing and style of the mountain building events. In this study, we employ ~90 1D basin models, ~30 inverse flexural models, isopachs, and paleogeographic maps to better understand the Paleozoic history of North America.

Show more

Request a visit from Kurt W. Rudolph!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

Fossil hominin footprints offer a unique and immediate snapshot of our ancestors' lives, capturing their ecological, environmental, and behavioral contexts over remarkably short time scales. This presentation delves into the discovery and analysis of over 400 human footprints from Engare Sero, Tanzania, located on the southern shore of Lake Natron.

Request a visit from Cynthia Liutkus-Pierce!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
VG Abstract

The carbonate sequences that were deposited in the now exhumed Tethyan Ocean influence many aspects of our lives today, either by supplying the energy that warms our homes and the fuel that powers our cars or providing the stunning landscapes for both winter and summer vacations. They also represent some of the most intensely studied rock formations in the world and have provided geoscientists with a fascinating insight into the turbulent nature of 250 Million years of Earth’s history. By combining studies from the full range of geoscience disciplines this presentation will trace the development of these carbonate sequences from their initial formation on the margins of large ancient continental masses to their present day locations in and around the Greater Mediterranean and Near East region. The first order control on growth patterns and carbonate platform development by the regional plate-tectonic setting, underlying basin architecture and fluctuations in sea level will be illustrated. The organisms that contribute to sequence development will be revealed to be treasure troves of forensic information. Finally, these rock sequences will be shown to contain all the ingredients necessary to form and retain hydrocarbons and the manner in which major post-depositional tectonic events led to the formation of some of the largest hydrocarbon accumulations in the world will be demonstrated.

Show more

Request a visit from Keith Gerdes!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

Around 170 million years ago, the Gulf of Mexico basin flooded catastrophically, and the pre-existing landscape, which had been a very rugged, arid, semi-desert world, was drowned beneath an inland sea of salt water. The drowned landscape was then buried under kilometers of salt, perfectly preserving the older topography. Now, with high-quality 3D seismic data, the salt appears as a transparent layer, and the details of the drowned world can be seen in exquisite detail, providing a unique snapshot of the world on the eve of the flooding event. We can map out hills and valleys, and a system of river gullies and a large, meandering river system. These rivers in turn fed into a deep central lake, whose surface was about 750m below global sea level. This new knowledge also reveals how the Louann Salt was deposited. In contrast to published models, the salt was deposited in a deep water, hypersaline sea. We can estimate the rate of deposition, and it was very fast; we believe that the entire thickness of several kilometers of salt was laid down in a few tens of thousands of years, making it possibly the fastest sustained deposition seen so far in the geological record.

Show more

Request a visit from Frank Peel!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

The Energy sector is a changing business environment. Throughout the 20th century fluctuations of oil supply and demand produced changes in the barrel price that pushed the growth or shrinkage of the industry. In this 21st century, new challenges such as diversification of the energy mix, boosting gas demand, require the exploration of critical minerals and development of new technologies as well.

Request a visit from Fernanda Raggio!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

Physics is an essential component of geophysics but there is much that physics cannot know or address. 

Request a visit from John Castagna!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

While there are many habitats that are associated with the deposition of organic-rich marine and lacustrine source rocks, one important pathway is linked to the onset of increased basin subsidence associated with major tectonic events. A key aspect is that this subsidence is spatially variable, with the uplift of basin flanks contemporaneous with the foundering of the basin center, resulting in a steeper basin profile.

Request a visit from Kurt W. Rudolph!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

Climate change is not only happening in the atmosphere but also in the anthroposphere; in some ways the former could drive or exacerbate the latter, with extreme weather excursions and extreme excursions from societal norms occurring all over the earth. Accomplishing geoscience for a common goal – whether that is for successful business activities, resource assessment for public planning, mitigating the impacts of geological hazards, or for the sheer love of furthering knowledge and understanding – can and should be done by a workforce that is equitably developed and supported. Difficulty arises when the value of institutional programs to increase equity and diversity is not realized.

Show more

Request a visit from Sherilyn Williams-Stroud!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

Why H₂ is generated in subsurface? Which are the reactions and the promising geological setting? Example in countries where H₂ have already been found: Australia, Brazil. Kinetic reactions: i.e., Is the natural H₂ renewable? What we don't know yet about this resource and about the H₂ systems (generation/transport/accumulation). Overview of the current landscape (subsurface law, permitting, E&P activity)

Request a visit from Isabelle Moretti!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

Engineering of wind farms, development of carbon sequestration projects in shelfal waters, the proliferation of communication cables that connect the world, all of these things suggest that it is time to re-examine what we know about shelf processes both updip-to-downdip and along shoreline, and the influence of shelf processes on erosion and transport of sediments.

Request a visit from Lesli Wood!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

Related Interests