Explorer Emphasis Article

What’s new in downhole geology, you ask? According to the advertising and press releases that are sent throughout the media, there’s a lot that’s new – more, in fact, than we could ever cover. But since this is our annual Downhole Geology issue, we thought we’d take a look at some of the latest advancements in drilling, well-logging and other downhole innovations rolled out in recent months by a few industry heavy-hitters.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

After many months of harnessing mind-bending ideas, a Houston-based team of engineers, geologists and geophysicists has developed technology to monitor hydraulic fractures from the surface and wellbore simultaneously. Adding multiple dimensions to the monitoring process, they say, allows operators to more clearly understand drainage patterns of hydrocarbons in shale reservoirs and, more importantly, know with greater certainty where to drill the next well, how to optimize completions and maximize asset value.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

The relatively recent, very large discoveries offshore Brazil have put pre-salt exploration in the South Atlantic back in the foreground. Pre-salt exploration history, however, is far more ancient and marked with some major successes – but also many failures. Here’s a brief overview of this exploration in West Africa until the M’Boundi discovery, which will be described in detail as it brings some lessons that readers can discover for themselves.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Geophysical Corner

Depending on the seismic data quality and either the presence or lack of isolated strong reflectors, identifying horizons can be a trivial exercise or a challenging problem.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

At first glance it seems there’s not much overtly new about drilling in the Mississippi Lime – or overtly new about the Mississippi Lime play, either, for that matter – a play that oozes from northern Oklahoma through southern Kansas (and some say, perhaps, to Nebraska).

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

AAPG is committed to connecting promising original research with much-needed funding and is continually seeking – and finding – new ways to make that potential a reality.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Enter the AMV, or Wave Glider, which is being developed by Liquid Robotics and being considered as the technology to potentially acquire seismic data where other equipment is limited.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Unconventional plays are producing hundreds of wells within relatively small spaces, and all are cranking out more data than any human could possibly track. It’s a fact that has driven the oil and gas industry to search for technology that can intelligently quantify such data and increase the odds of a discovery.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Despite a few lean times – including a stretch when it was derided as the Dead Sea – the GOM always comes roaring back to life to reclaim its position as the shining star of domestic hydrocarbon production.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Geophysical Corner

Seismic data are usually contaminated with noise, which refers to any unwanted features in the data. These unwanted features may actually be somebody else’s signal, such as converted waves in what we think of as “P-wave” data – but more commonly, these unwanted “noise” features provide little or no information about the subsurface, and are referred to as random noise and coherent noise.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Workshop
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tuesday, 18 February Wednesday, 19 February 2025, 7:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Join us for AAPG Orphan, Abandoned, Idle and Marginal Wells Conference 2025. This workshop will focus on orphan, abandoned, idle, and marginal wells and the business opportunities and technology associated with plugging and repurposing wells, reducing methane emissions, protecting water supplies, and extending the lives of marginal wells.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Field Seminar
Houston, Texas
Saturday, 1 February 2025, 8:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m.

Everyone in Houston lives within a few miles of a bayou. Some people think of them as permanent, but the bayous are constantly changing, especially during high water events like Hurricane Harvey. This trip is a 2.5 mile walk down a section of Buffalo Bayou where we will look at the archives of past storms and discuss what to do for future storms.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
VG Abstract

In comparison with the known boundary conditions that promote salt deformation and flow in sedimentary basins, the processes involved with the mobilization of clay-rich detrital sediments are far less well established. This talk will use seismic examples in different tectonic settings to document the variety of shale geometries that can be formed under brittle and ductile deformations.

Request a visit from Juan I. Soto!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) seismic-reflection surveys provide one of the most important data types for understanding subsurface depositional systems. Quantitative analysis is commonly restricted to geophysical interpretation of elastic properties of rocks in the subsurface. Wide availability of 3D seismic-reflection data and integration provide opportunities for quantitative analysis of subsurface stratigraphic sequences. Here, we integrate traditional seismic-stratigraphic interpretation with quantitative geomorphologic analysis and numerical modeling to explore new insights into submarine-channel evolution.

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Request a visit from Jacob Covault!

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.

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Request a visit from Frank Peel!

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)

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