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Explorer Article

C-Type, near Earth asteroids Ryugu and Bennu have been the subjects of recent robotic sampling missions. These missions have yielded valuable data relevant to the formation of the solar system and have important implications for the future of deep-space commerce.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Division Column EMD

There are many potential changes coming to AAPG and, by association, the Energy Minerals Division, but that doesn’t mean we should be static or complacent. New efforts now will help lay the groundwork for whatever the future holds. Worried EMD won’t exist in the NewOrg? Don’t! Whatever form a combined AAPG-SPE might take, there will certainly be a place for energy geoscientists interested in and working on the energy resources and issues currently addressed under the EMD umbrella. We might be working under a different name, but the need for a forum to discuss the array of resources being studied and developed by energy geoscientists will remain.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The eastern Great Basin of western Utah has long been known as a high heat flow region containing young volcanic rocks and several producing hydrothermal systems. The Utah FORGE Enhanced Geothermal Systems project seeks to advance technology to extract the heat in the huge volumes of hot rock underground, identified or strongly suspected, that do not currently possess adequate permeability. Resolving the underlying mechanisms that have heated such volumes should not only help characterize the magnitude of an individual resource but also create a pathfinder for discovering other systems, both EGS and hydrothermal.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Geophysical Corner

Seismic inversion for acoustic impedance is widely used in our industry today, mainly due to the ease and accuracy of interpretation of impedance data, but also because it allows an integrated approach to geological interpretation. In a series of three prior articles of Geophysical Corner, the application of the different methods for transformation of stacked, prestack and multicomponent seismic data into impedance data were described. In this month’s column we revisit one of the methods, namely colored inversion, to describe in detail the methodology entailed and its application to a seismic dataset from Denmark.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

It has become something of an old chestnut in the West that China will often claim to have achieved famous scientific advancements and inventions first, often hundreds of years before the West. The investigation of these sorts of disputes – and deciding who gets bragging rights – is probably best left to serious historical researchers, but there is firm evidence of many interesting early technical achievements from the Middle Kingdom. Ancient China’s development of deep drilling techniques predates similar advancements in the West by hundreds of years.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

As the United States and other developed countries embrace the prospect of transitioning to renewable energy, the need for critical minerals is skyrocketing. Solar plants, wind farms and electric vehicles require more minerals to build than their fossil fuel-based counterparts. For example, a typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car, and an onshore wind plant requires nine times more mineral resources than a gas-fired plant, according to the International Energy Agency. Addressing the exploding need for critical minerals and how petroleum geoscientists can lead such efforts, members of AAPG’s Energy Minerals Division came together to discuss the future of critical minerals at the International Meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy conference in Denver.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

At a session entitled, “From Petroleum Industry to Energy Industry: Global Young Professionals’ Perspectives on a Sustainable Future,” at the International Meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy conference recently held in Denver, speakers representing the World Petroleum Council’s Young Professionals Committee attributed their career decisions to the ongoing need for oil and gas, opportunities to help the industry decarbonize and a growing number of geoscience-related fields that are in need of their skillsets to thrive.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Emphasizing that the oil and gas industry will continue to play an important role in supplying energy to the world for years to come, past AAPG President Charles Sternbach shared what he called “Seven Habits of Highly Effective Energy Geoscientists” at the 20th Michel T. Halbouty Lecture at the International Meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy conference in Denver recently. “We need to be proud of our profession and we need to be proud of what energy and oil and gas do to bring good things to humanity,” said Sternbach.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

When it comes to biomass – and, specifically, the burning of scrap lumber and forest debris – people on both sides of the debate agree that not only do trees release carbon dioxide when burned, but they are also the most effective tool we have at removing CO2 from the atmosphere. The question and disagreement, then, is what the net result is: do trees – the source of biomass for energy – capture the same amount of CO2 (through photosynthesis) while growing? “Almost half of the ‘renewable’ energy that Western Europe credits itself for is biomass of various kinds,” said Scott Tinker, director of the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

DeNovo uses green energy to power offshore platforms and reduce country’s carbon footprint.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Field Seminar
Khobar, Saudi Arabia
Sunday, 3 March 2024, 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Trip Leaders Saeed Tofaif, Saudi Aramco Mohammed Sadah, Saudi Aramco Pre-Workshop Field Trip Date: 3 March Registration Deadline: 4 February Attendee Limit: 12-Min. / 25-Max. --> Fee: $200 Note:To register for the field trip please select the field trip option while completing your registration for the workshop The Hadrukh Formation of eastern Saudi Arabia was deposited in early Miocene in tidal, restricted lagoon and sabkha settings with fresh water incursions. Deposition in these non-marine, semi-arid coastal plains resulted deposition of varying lithologies in short lateral extent. This field trip to Hadrukh Formation outcrops in Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia offers observation of internal stratigraphy of the Hadrukh Formation and lithological changes in the lateral extent, which is a key component in defining stratigraphic traps in the subsurface.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Short Course
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Thursday, 29 February 2024, 7:30 a.m.–8:30 a.m.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Short Course
Fort Worth, Texas
Thursday, 18 January 2024, 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Instructor: Jon Rotzien First 100 Registrants will also receive a copy of The Explorer’s Mindset: Lessons in Leadership in the Applied Geosciences and Energy Industry Short Course to be offered Jan. 18 and 19

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Workshop
Palermo, Italy
Monday, 22 April Wednesday, 24 April 2024, 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

This Symposium marks a collaborative event that brings together AAPG Europe and AAPG Middle East, with a central focus on carbonates and mixed carbonate systems worldwide, while highlighting their significance within these two regions. The primary objectives are an overview of controls that govern the evolution of these systems in time and space and the characterization and prediction of their properties across scales.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Workshop
Abu Dhabi, UAE
Monday, 27 May Wednesday, 29 May 2024, 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

In order to support the energy transition, optimizing exploration and production from complex stratigraphic-diagenetic conventional and unconventional plays remains highly important. At the same time, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) poses new technological challenges that will impact both the industry and academia for decades to come. This 2nd edition will present reviews and discuss technology developments in geological process-based forward modeling achieved during the last 2 years. New perspectives for future technology developments and implementation in industry workflows will be discussed and with the additional focus on CO₂ storage and other sustainability-related applications, the scope of the workshop will be considerably extended.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Workshop
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tuesday, 30 January Wednesday, 31 January 2024, 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

AAPG and EAGE have teamed up to deliver the upcoming New Discoveries in Mature Basins workshop to be held from 30-31 January, 2024 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Save the date! Registration to open soon.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Workshop
Khobar, Saudi Arabia
Monday, 4 March Wednesday, 6 March 2024, 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Join us for the 4th Edition of: "Stratigraphic Traps of the Middle East" workshop. The workshop will be hosted by AAPG in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia 4-6 March 2024.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Workshop
Paramaribo, Suriname
Wednesday, 17 January Thursday, 18 January 2024, 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Plan now to attend an interactive in-person workshop with industry leaders, government representatives and technical experts working in the Guyana-Suriname Basin.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

This presentation is a survey of subsurface machine learning concepts that have been formulated for unconventional asset development, described in the literature, and subsequently patented. Operators that utilize similar subsurface machine learning workflows and other data modelling techniques enjoy a competitive advantage at optimizing the development of unconventional plays.

Request a visit from Shane Prochnow!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

Physics is an essential component of geophysics but there is much that physics cannot know or address. 

Request a visit from John Castagna!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
VG Abstract

The Betic hinterland, in the westernmost Mediterranean, constitutes a unique example of a stack of metamorphic units. Using a three-dimensional model for the crustal structure of the Betics-Rif area this talk will address the role of crustal flow simultaneously to upper-crustal low-angle faulting in the origin and evolution of the topography.

Request a visit from Juan I. Soto!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

Local sea-level changes are not simply a function of global ocean volumes but also the interactions between the solid Earth, the Earth’s gravitational field and the loading and unloading of ice sheets. Contrasting behaviors between Antarctica and Scotland highlight how important the geologic structure beneath the former ice sheets is in determining the interactions between ice sheets and relative sea levels.

Request a visit from Alex Simms!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

President Biden has laid out a bold and ambitious goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions in the United States by 2050.  The pathway to that target includes cutting total greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and eliminating them entirely from the nation’s electricity sector by 2035. The Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management will play an important role in the transition to net-zero carbon emissions by reducing the environmental impacts of fossil energy production and use – and helping decarbonize other hard-to abate sectors.

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Request a visit from Jennifer Wilcox!

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

Climate change is not only happening in the atmosphere but also in the anthroposphere; in some ways the former could drive or exacerbate the latter, with extreme weather excursions and extreme excursions from societal norms occurring all over the earth. Accomplishing geoscience for a common goal – whether that is for successful business activities, resource assessment for public planning, mitigating the impacts of geological hazards, or for the sheer love of furthering knowledge and understanding – can and should be done by a workforce that is equitably developed and supported. Difficulty arises when the value of institutional programs to increase equity and diversity is not realized.

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Request a visit from Sherilyn Williams-Stroud!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
VG Abstract

The carbonate sequences that were deposited in the now exhumed Tethyan Ocean influence many aspects of our lives today, either by supplying the energy that warms our homes and the fuel that powers our cars or providing the stunning landscapes for both winter and summer vacations. They also represent some of the most intensely studied rock formations in the world and have provided geoscientists with a fascinating insight into the turbulent nature of 250 Million years of Earth’s history. By combining studies from the full range of geoscience disciplines this presentation will trace the development of these carbonate sequences from their initial formation on the margins of large ancient continental masses to their present day locations in and around the Greater Mediterranean and Near East region. The first order control on growth patterns and carbonate platform development by the regional plate-tectonic setting, underlying basin architecture and fluctuations in sea level will be illustrated. The organisms that contribute to sequence development will be revealed to be treasure troves of forensic information. Finally, these rock sequences will be shown to contain all the ingredients necessary to form and retain hydrocarbons and the manner in which major post-depositional tectonic events led to the formation of some of the largest hydrocarbon accumulations in the world will be demonstrated.

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Request a visit from Keith Gerdes!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

Why H₂ is generated in subsurface? Which are the reactions and the promising geological setting? Example in countries where H₂ have already been found: Australia, Brazil. Kinetic reactions: i.e., Is the natural H₂ renewable? What we don't know yet about this resource and about the H₂ systems (generation/transport/accumulation). Overview of the current landscape (subsurface law, permitting, E&P activity)

Request a visit from Isabelle Moretti!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

As oil and gas exploration and production occur in deeper basins and more complex geologic settings, accurate characterization and modeling of reservoirs to improve estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) prediction, optimize well placement and maximize recovery become paramount. Existing technologies for reservoir characterization and modeling have proven inadequate for delivering detailed 3D predictions of reservoir architecture, connectivity and rock quality at scales that impact subsurface flow patterns and reservoir performance. Because of the gap between the geophysical and geologic data available (seismic, well logs, cores) and the data needed to model rock heterogeneities at the reservoir scale, constraints from external analog systems are needed. Existing stratigraphic concepts and deposition models are mostly empirical and seldom provide quantitative constraints on fine-scale reservoir heterogeneity. Current reservoir modeling tools are challenged to accurately replicate complex, nonstationary, rock heterogeneity patterns that control connectivity, such as shale layers that serve as flow baffles and barriers.

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Request a visit from Tao Sun!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

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