Explorer Geophysical Corner

This month's column is titled 'Crooks Gap Field; Limitations of 3-D Seismic Interpretation.'

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The oil patch is a happening place these days -- and a lot of the activity is directed toward acquisitions, mergers, downsizing and the like.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Wildcat Recollections Column

In 1969, Shell Oil began looking for places where its new 'bright spot' technology could be useful in the onshore of the United States. Armed with a list of rock and fluid criteria, I began making a search for places where this novel technique could be as useful to Shell in the onshore USA as it was in the Gulf of Mexico.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Geophysical Corner

This month, we further evolve this framework to build a palinspastically quantitative reassembly of continents and continental blocks that were separated during the Mesozoic rifting and subsequent drift in the Gulf of Mexico region -- key features.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Shipping lanes enhance the challenge of this 3-D seismic shoot at the South Pass of the Missippi River's mouth.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

The historic 'western gap' treaty, signed this summer by the U.S. and Mexican governments after more than 22 years of waiting, already is redefining priorities in Gulf of Mexico exploration.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Deep water and subsalt plays are the two hottest exploration frontiers in the Gulf of Mexico and searching for structures below the salt in waters thousands of feet deep is the most exciting play with the greatest potential for reward vs. the risk.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The oil and gas business continues to be among the crown jewels of the United Kingdom's economy, sustaining an impressive performance for over three decades -- and through innovative approaches, officials mean to keep it that way.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

One hundred years of petroleum exploration and development in the Los Angeles region have produced a rich legacy of geological and geophysical data -- a legacy that the oil industry has spent billions of dollars to obtain.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Environmentalism has come a long way from its extremist beginnings. Today, it permeates mainstream society, and it's way cool to think green.

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)
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)

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