The beautiful city of Wellington was the venue for AAPG’s first Geosciences Technology Workshop (GTW) in New Zealand. Held at the Wharewaka convention centre, adjacent to Wellington Bay, the event welcomed 66 industry delegates. Ably convened by Dr Mac Beggs of New Zealand Oil & Gas, with a committee of six other experts, the workshop explored the theme “Modern Depositional Systems as Analogues for Petroleum Reservoirs”.

Keynote speakers Charles K Paull (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, USA), Dale Leckie (Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, University of Calgary, Canada), M. Blum (University of Kansas, USA), John McPherson (SED&RQ Pty Ltd, Australia), and Bruce Ainsworth (Chevron Energy Technology Company, Australia) provided scintillating addresses. 16 other industry experts provided very interesting talks. There were also static poster presentations from students, whose attendance was kindly sponsored by Chevron. Our appreciation goes to them, as well as to the other sponsors Schlumberger, New Zealand Oil & Gas, GNS Science and Excel Geophysical.

Wellington GTW Fieldtrip

The workshop included a one-day field trip to the broad alluvial plains of the Wairarapa Valley east of Wellington City. The trip was led by Dr Cliff Atkins (Victoria University of Wellington) with assistance from Dr Greg Brown (GNS Science) and involved twenty for GTW particpants. The group examined processes and sediments in several modern depositional settings including; braided gravel river, small river-dominated lacustrine delta and coastal lagoon/beach barrier complex. Larger-scale source to sink sediment flux in the Wairarapa and the effect of sea level change was discussed at the beach barrier site with the aid of high resolution sea floor imagery of the offshore canyon system provide by Phil Barnes (NIWA). The modern depositional settings provided direct analogues for a traverse through a Pleistocene sequence of marginal marine and terrestrial (lacustrine and fluvial) rocks exposed in hills of the eastern side of the Wairarapa Valley. The field ended with a visit to one of the local vineyards.