Field Trip Organizer: Dhahran Geoscience Society
Field Trip Leader: Mohammed Al-Masrahy
Date: 4 February 2021
Time: 15.30 – 17.00 (GST/GMT+4)
Fee: Free of Charge
Field Trip Description
Over the past two decades, there have been major developments in the efforts to quantify the architectural elements, geometry, and dimensions of depositional bodies from analogues to provide quantitative input to geological models.
Analogues, especially ancient outcrops and modern analogues have played a crucial role in improving the understanding of subsurface reservoir architectural elements. They provide important information on subsurface reservoir geobodies size, geometry, and potential connectivity, which all contribute to better reservoir characterization. This is especially vital for highly heterogeneous siliciclastic or carbonate reservoirs that require the integration and detailed analysis of reservoir petrophysical properties, facies, diagenesis, geometry, depositional environments and lateral and vertical variability.
Robust subsurface reservoir models heavily rely on the available geological input data. Outcrop and modern analogue data from comparable systems provide additional input to geological models of the subsurface. This virtual field trip will provide valuable insights into the nature of this complexity.
Aims and Objectives
The virtual field trip comprises a field study of a range of continental clastic modern systems and related sedimentary facies, each of which possesses attributes that are comparable in part to the subsurface deposits.
Virtual field trip attendees will gain knowledge about key competencies related to field geology, such as understanding the geomorphology of continental systems, seeing examples that explain sedimentary structures, textures, and facies, identifying depositional environments, and linking sedimentological observations to subsurface reservoir modeling.
One specific aim of this virtual field trip is to emphasize that integrated reservoir characterization and modeling processes take into account actual depositional trends and distribution of the sedimentary bodies (sediment-body geometry and heterogeneity), through the understanding of modern analogues settings.
Intended Learning Outcomes
This virtual field trip will provide insights and offer discussions of the following aspects:
- An introduction to techniques and criteria for the recognition of continental (fluvial and aeolian systems), and related sedimentary facies in modern system and discussions of the application of these techniques to the study of subsurface sedimentology and geological modeling.
- 1D, 2D and 3D facies architecture with particular consideration of the geometry and scale of key stratal bodies that have relevance for understanding subsurface hydrocarbon reservoirs.
- The nature of autocyclic (intrinsic) interactions between competing sedimentary processes and consideration of the implications of these in terms of reservoir quality.
- The nature of allocyclic (external) controls on sedimentary processes and consideration of the effects of temporal and spatial changes in these controls on the preserved successions.
- The significance of accurately determining the preserved geometry of reservoir successions and performing correlations at the interwell scale.
- 3D prediction of the distribution of net versus non-net reservoir.