Explorer Article

While the rest of the world of seismic exploration is scaling down in response to the current trend of depressed oil prices, the government of Mexico is beckoning to all comers and, so far, they seem to be answering.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Geophysical Corner

Access to modern 3-D seismic data is critical to educating the next generation of sedimentologists, stratigraphers, structural geologists and geophysicists who envision a career in the petroleum industry.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Director’s Corner

Equipping you to be a world-class geoscientist is our goal here at AAPG. It’s why we exist as a scientific and professional association: To assist you throughout your career to stay at the top of your game.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Geophysical Corner

This month’s Geophysical Corner column deals with Sobel filtering for enhancing seismic coherence attribute.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Spotlight On…

According to Juan Carlos Soldo, who just recently led the successful IX Hydrocarbon Exploration and Development Congress in Mendoza, Argentina, “Unconventionals really aren't so unconventional anymore.” 

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Oil should be a blessing. It creates jobs and puts food on the table for millions of people. It fuels the power that drives industrial growth and development to move countries beyond oil and gas into a sustainable future. That is how the first female president of NAPE views the hydrocarbons she has been working to discover since beginning her career 24 years ago.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Geophysical Corner

Three-D seismic surveys always suffer from poor sampling along at least one spatial dimension – that’s why many techniques have been developed over the years to interpolate data, in particular before final migration.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

When it comes to downhole geology, little things matter. Those “things” would include the realm of microseismic measurements, because as unconventional plays and hydraulic fracturing become the norm throughout the industry, the need for microseismic imaging grows in importance. Companies large and small are constantly developing, testing and using this technology, hoping to add value to today’s efforts.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
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)
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

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

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)

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