Source rocks, source rocks and more source rocks will be the stars of this month’s annual meeting of AAPG’s Rocky Mountain Section, set July 20-22 at Denver’s Colorado Convention Center.
“It’s a source rock-heavy meeting, but we’re also touching on other topics,” said AAPG member Catherine “Cat” Campbell, general chair of the RMS annual meeting, in explanation of this year’s theme, “Cracking the Source.”
“If you don’t start with a good source rock, you don’t start,” she quipped.
“Our source rocks are becoming our reservoir rocks,” she said. “It seems to be the future of oil and gas, and a lot of the shale plays in the Rockies are being understood based on evaluating the source rocks.”
Campbell is a geologist for Robert L. Bayless, Producer, and RMS secretary/treasurer.
She said the focus will be on the source rocks of the Rocky Mountain area and their impact on the unconventional resources of the region.
AAPG Honorary member R. Randy Ray, consulting geologist/geophysicist of the Denver-based R3 Exploration, told the EXPLORER this year’s theme is “a really hot topic” that should attract a significant turnout for several reasons, not least of which is that the Rocky Mountain plays to be highlighted – the Bakken and Niobrara – hold insights applicable everywhere.
“Both of those are really active for drilling and showing a lot of success, and so the learnings will certainly apply to other unconventional resource plays in North America and around the world,” he said.
The meeting, hosted by the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists, will include more than 100 presentations covering, along with source rocks, a range of topics that include technologies used in the identification, characterization and exploitation of these reservoirs, and new insights on the structure and stratigraphy of the Rockies and beyond.
Also planned are four field trips that take advantage of the Colorado setting.
“The field trips are just expressing how lucky we are to be in the Denver area – everything’s within a couple hours’ drive from Denver,” Campbell said.
“It’s kind of nice,” she continued, “the Niobrara outcrops … to be able to look at this world-class rock and know that it’s being drilled in the DJ Basin is pretty cool.”
Visit the RMS meeting site for registration and other information.