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Explorer Article

Three potent forces are buffeting the offshore energy industry in 2024. Thanks to technology, it’s meeting those challenges head on. Offshore operators today face significant demands to reduce or at least contain higher costs and increase efficiency, especially in production operations. At the same time, the industry’s need to build up long-term reserves has pushed offshore exploration toward more remote, frontier prospects. In sports terms, offshore exploration and production companies are like teams struggling with spending caps while also trying to boost their scoring ability.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Production and prospects continue to pour out of the greater Permian Basin-area of West Texas. One growing play echoes the very beginning of the U.S. shale revolution. More than 20 years ago, development of the Barnett Shale in the Fort Worth Basin introduced the world to the practice of combining hydraulic fracturing with horizontal drilling. That became a history-making shale gas play. Today, operators are targeting the Barnett more than 300 miles to the west, in the Midland Basin, where the formation is deeper and oilier.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The world’s top 20 super basins contain about 57 percent of the biggest oil fields in the world. Until recently, though, there wasn’t a comprehensive repository where industry professionals and scientists could access information about those fields, especially as it pertained to their commerciality, geoscience architecture, infrastructure and above-ground challenges. There is now.  With the release of the fourth installment of the “Super Basin Special Issue Series” of the AAPG Bulletin, scheduled for this August and coinciding with the AAPG-SEG International Meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy, the work is complete.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Director’s Corner

In February, AAPG partnered with the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists to conduct the Energy in Transition Symposium in Washington, D.C. Hosted by the Embassy of Canada in the U.S. capital, and with the financial support of the AAPG Foundation and other sponsors, the focus of the symposium to communicate the important role of subsurface science and engineering as global energy systems continue to evolve.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

Colorado’s hydrocarbon industry was built on the foundation of early explorers and field geologists venturing through rough and often dangerous terrain, surveying and mapping in a young nation at a time when geology was in its technological infancy. Without even the aid of a Brunton compass (patented 1894) early geologists, such as Ferdinand Hayden and John Powell, created the beginnings of Colorado’s geological knowledge through exceptional skill and work, upon which we continue to build today.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

National and international energy companies today face enormous pressure from government, shareholders and society to meet increasing demand and deliver profits while meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and progressing toward a transition away from fossil fuels. The Energy Trilemma – the capacity to provide energy security, energy equity and environmental sustainability simultaneously – is a term developed and measured by the World Energy Council since 2010. Whether they use “Energy Trilemma” or another term, industry leaders face daily decisions about how to provide reliable, sustainable energy for all while reducing CO2 emissions and developing cleaner energy sources.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

The decade of the 1960s was both hectic and productive in the international petroleum industry. During those years, I worked for three oil and gas companies: Shell; the state-owned Corporacion Venezolana de Petróleo, or CVP; and Philips Petroleum Corporation. The geographical locations were diverse: surface exploration in western Venezuela; the Maracaibo oilfields and Caracas; The Hague, in the Netherlands; Balikpapan, Indonesia; Bartlesville, Okla.; and Lafayette, La. One of my most fruitful experiences took place in Maracaibo, when I had the opportunity to work with a four-man team from the Institut Français du Pétrole, known as IFP – the French Petroleum Institute. They had been sent to Venezuela to conduct regional geological studies in support of the newly created CVP.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

There’s an old adage that “the Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.” What does this have to do with oil and gas? According to Carlos Garibaldi, executive secretary of ARPEL, plenty. He said it’s a sentiment that should be both reassuring and motivating to those in the oil and gas industry, especially as the future energy landscape is so in flux.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Introduced almost 20 years ago, ESG became the social responsibility yardstick of choice for money managers worldwide. Now, it has become one of the biggest controversies in finance. Investing based on ESG ratings has been called a scam, a failure, an attack on fossil fuels, an example of “woke” capitalism, a mix of greenwashing and corporate deception, a dereliction of fiduciary duty. What happened?

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Over the next two years, led by the Middle East and South America, a resurgent offshore sector is poised to reach its highest level of activity in more than a decade. That’s right: the Middle East. With so much happening around the world, the energy industry will need to play catch-up to prepare for future growth.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Field Seminar
Muscat, Oman
Sunday, 5 April 2026, 8:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m.

This one-day advanced course delivers a focused and highly practical framework for interpreting structural styles in the Middle East, combined with the unique advantage of applying Generative AI (GenAI) to elevate geological understanding and decision-making. Built for geoscientists working in exploration, development, or basin modeling, the course emphasizes practical techniques, hands-on interpretation, and modern tools that increase accuracy, speed, and confidence in structural workflows. We begin with a foundational module designed to unify all participants, regardless of background, around the principles of fault mechanics and structural style recognition. Participants will revisit faulting fundamentals, mechanical stratigraphy, and structural style classification. The goal is to align interpretation techniques with geological processes, and to establish a shared vocabulary for the day. An introduction to GenAI highlights its role in managing structural ambiguity and enhancing workflows, helping geoscientists clarify options when data is incomplete or conflicting. Normal Faulting Through a sequence of focused exercises, participants explore fault segmentation, growth history, and interpretation in extensional domains. This segment reinforces practical skills in identifying and validating fault geometries in map and section views. GenAI is introduced as a scenario-building tool: participants will use it to explore structural uncertainty, generate alternative models, and compare extensional interpretations, all using fragmented or incomplete datasets, not as a seismic interpreter but as a powerful thought partner. Strike-Slip and Transtension This module targets the complexity of strike-slip and transtensional systems. Participants learn to distinguish pure strike-slip geometries from transtensional overprints, assess compartmentalization, and model realistic deformation patterns. Interpretation exercises develop structural reasoning in map and cross-sectional views. GenAI is applied here to integrate multi-source inputs, such as field data, analogs, and internal reports, to support rapid synthesis and generate testable structural concepts. Salt Tectonics The final segment introduces key diagnostic features of salt-related deformation: welds, reactive and passive diapirs, and halokinetic sequences. Exercises train participants to recognize salt-influenced geometries and link them to broader structural evolution. GenAI then supports pattern recognition and memory mining, leveraging archived knowledge from prior studies, case histories, and analog reports to help geoscientists build and validate interpretations faster and with more confidence. What makes this course different? This is not a theoretical seminar. It’s a learning accelerator, where foundational concepts are applied in realistic interpretation settings, then extended with state-of-the-art GenAI capabilities. You’ll not only sharpen your structural reasoning, but learn how to delegate time-consuming tasks, like synthesizing legacy reports, generating alternative scenarios, or exploring interpretation options, to an intelligent AI partner. By the end of the day, participants will: Recognize and differentiate key fault styles with confidence Improve fault interpretation quality and geological risk assessment Use GenAI to test structural scenarios and extract insight from fragmented or incomplete datasets Accelerate their ability to interpret, communicate, and make decisions in structurally complex plays This course equips you with what matters most today: deep geological understanding, elevated by the best of modern AI. Who Should Attend and Why This course is ideal for both new hires and experienced geoscientists working across exploration, development, and reservoir modeling. Its exercise-driven format ensures that participants with diverse backgrounds, geologists, geophysicists, geomodelers, can engage, learn, and apply. While some familiarity with geosciences is beneficial, prior structural geology training is not required. What makes this course indispensable is its ability to bridge theory and practice: participants will gain a clear understanding of how rocks deform over time, how fault geometries evolve, and how these structures influence seismic interpretation, mapping, and static/dynamic modeling. By integrating real case studies and GenAI-enhanced workflows, the course delivers practical tools to improve subsurface outcomes and build models that match project maturity and business objectives. Main Objective This course delivers the structural geology foundations every geoscientist needs to confidently interpret faults and build or validate static models. Derived from decades of project reviews, interpretation support, and applied field experience, these “must-know” concepts include fault mechanics, growth, segmentation, and structural style recognition, relevant to both exploration and production settings. Participants will strengthen their ability to recognize deformation styles, interpret fault geometries in map and section view, assess mechanical stratigraphy and reactivation risk, and QC interpretations with confidence. Throughout the course, GenAI is introduced not as a software tool, but as a workflow enhancer, used to reduce ambiguity, test structural hypotheses, and extract insight from fragmented datasets or legacy documentation. This empowers geoscientists to think more clearly, work more efficiently, and improve the geological soundness of their models. Key Points Date: 5th April,2026 Venue: Crowne Plaza Hotel, OCEC Registration Fee: $590 Registration Deadline: 22nd February,2026 *Registration will be opening shortly Instructors Pascal Richard PRgeology Jan Witte Falcon-Geoconsulting

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Field Seminar
Muscat, Oman
Thursday, 9 April Friday, 10 April 2026, 7:30 a.m.–7:00 p.m.

The Jabal Akhdar in the Central Oman Mountains forms a ~90 km × 60 km dome. The core of this dome consists of Cryogenian to Ediacaran siliciclastics and carbonates, including source rocks. These rocks are separated from the overlying rocks by a spectacularly exposed angular unconformity. The rocks above this unconformity are Permo-Mesozoic shelf carbonates of the Arabian passive margin. The rocks below the unconformity are folded twice, while those above show no such folding. During the Late Cretaceous, Arabia was overthrust by the Samail Ophiolite and Hawasina deep-sea sedimentary rocks. Final doming occurred during the late Eocene to early Miocene. The Jabal Akhdar Dome is a textbook example of stratigraphy and structural geology development from the Cryogenian to the present. Furthermore, findings from the dome can be used as a natural laboratory and serve as an analogue for the hydrocarbon-bearing sequences in interior Oman. The two-day field trip will start at the Saiq Plateau where we will examine Cryogenian Snowball-Earth diamictites with cap carbonates, blended within the scenic landscape of Jabal Akhdar. The second day will start at a breath-taking vista point at Wadi Bani Awf. From there we will descend into the core of the Jabal Akhdar and explore the structural style of the Cryogenian and younger succession. Field Trip Information: Date: 9th – 10th April 2026 Time: 7:30am – 7pm Field Trip fee: $550 Registration Deadline: 5th March 2026 (*registration will be opening shortly) Fees Include: 1 night accommodation in a hotel Guided hiking tour through rose farms and ancient villages in Jebel Akhdar (2–3 hours) Traditional Omani lunch hosted at a local home BBQ dinner in a scenic open area at Jebel Akhdar All transportation (4x4s) Field Trip Leaders Andreas Scharf GUtech Oman Ivan Callegari GUtech Oman Wilfried Bauer GUtech Oman

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Workshop
Muscat, Oman
Monday, 6 April Wednesday, 8 April 2026, 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

The AAPG Structural Styles of the Middle East is back! This exciting and highly anticipated Geoscience Technology Workshop will take place from 6 – 8 April 2026, in Muscat, Oman. This workshop aims to explore the diverse structural styles resulting from the different deformation phases on the tectonostratigraphic framework of the Arabian Plate and adjacent regions.  

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Webinar
Virtual Webinar
Thursday, 25 June 2020, 8:00 a.m.–9:00 a.m.

Panelists will discuss current unconventional resource activities in North America, including key plays that remain competitive and potential for future growth. They also will address the key challenges for unconventional resources to stay competitive in the global market: maintaining cashflow, reducing expenditures, improving capital and production efficiencies and managing resources. Virtual Forum to be presented via Zoom.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 19 August 2010, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

This presentation will show where there are cases of missing sections, but none of them can be attributed to normal faulting.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Webinar
Virtual Webinar
Monday, 15 June 2020, 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m.

Ray Leonard will be talking to us about 'Climate Change, Covid-19 and the Effect on Energy’s Future'. Fossil fuels have led to a profound increase in world living standards but resulting emissions of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere are a primary factor in climate change. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 has resulted in a significant decrease in world economic activity, which in turn has led to a major, if temporary, decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO2. Join Ray Leonard via Zoom on June 15 at 12:00 GMT+1

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 28 July 2011, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

This presentation discusses one operator’s approach to fully integrate data captured in the Marcellus Shale in order to optimize horizontal well performance.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Webinar
Virtual Webinar
Wednesday, 27 May 2020, 7:00 p.m.–8:30 p.m.

Join us for 'New Approaches for Start-Up Success' where we will discuss selecting companies to invest in now, the game changers program now, profile of a successful drone and robotics start-up and how we adapted our pitch for the pandemic. Webinar will be presented via Zoom 7pm - 8:30pm CDT, 27 May 2020.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 16 February 2012, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

This presentation describes a proven workflow that uses a standard narrow azimuth 3D seismic, conventional logs, image logs and core data to build five key reservoir properties required for an optimal development of shale plays.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Webinar
Virtual Webinar
Thursday, 10 September 2020, 3:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m.

Economic oil and gas fields have been increasingly found in deep-water continental margins for the past decade, where potential prospects record the key tectonic events associated with plate breakup and continental drift. In these regions, the exploitation of economic resources must take into account sustainable practices and environmental concerns of local populations. This talk will present case studies from multiple continental margins to then extrapolate major findings to basins in SE Asia.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 21 August 2014, 2:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m.

The goal of this e-symposium is to review the status of the Mexican upstream sector, and to provide a review of the most prolific and prospective areas in Mexico, with a focus on opportunities for international participation, given the upcoming energy reform in Mexico.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Webinar
Virtual Webinar
Wednesday, 3 June 2020, 7:00 p.m.–8:30 p.m.

Join us for 'Analytics-Based Opportunities in Double Black Swan Times' where we will discuss the steps companies are taking, business considerations in cross-industry analytics -start-ups to majors, analytics agility in a double black swan world, enabling the workforce to utilize and exploit data remotely using the cloud and machine learning. Webinar will be presented via Zoom 7pm - 8:30pm CDT, 3 June 2020.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Webinar
Virtual Webinar
Thursday, 1 October 2020, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.

Join AAPG Asia Pacific to hear Agus Ramdahn, PhD to hear about a method of combining Bowers Method with density-sonic cross plots to estimate overpressure in the shelfal area of the Lower Kutai Basin This webinar will be presented via Zoom on Thursday 1 October at 11:00 Singapore Time

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

The Energy sector is a changing business environment. Throughout the 20th century fluctuations of oil supply and demand produced changes in the barrel price that pushed the growth or shrinkage of the industry. In this 21st century, new challenges such as diversification of the energy mix, boosting gas demand, require the exploration of critical minerals and development of new technologies as well.

Request a visit from Fernanda Raggio!

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)

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