Explorer Director’s Corner

It’s summertime here in the Northern Hemisphere, and with the sun and warm weather, thoughts are shifting to vacation. Packing the kids in the car for a week at the beach or a trip to grandma’s house is a time-honored tradition. But this year, moms and dads are doing so with an eye on surging gas prices – this road trip isn’t going to be cheap. Parents aren’t alone in casting a nervous eye on prices at the pump. The White House is, too.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The AAPG Women’s Network is excited to provide attendees at next month’s International Meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy with a variety of events throughout the conference. There is something for everyone!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

Not wishing to split hairs over which is the world’s first oil well, the majority of oil historians recognize the drilling of the Drake Well as the birth of the modern petroleum industry. What is not so well known is that some seven miles southeast of the Drake Well, in Pithole Creek, lie the remains of a city that came out of nowhere as a new town, enjoyed great splendor, then disappeared in a few years. It is the legendary Pithole City in Venango County of northwestern Pennsylvania.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

With the price of oil hovering well over $100 a barrel, some in the industry are exploring ways to revisit conventional oilfields using technology that emerged during the unconventional oil boom, with a goal of earning a rapid return on investment while prices remain favorable.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Global events of recent years have driven the oil and gas industry to make major changes to its workforce and operations, and the professional and scientific associations that serve the industry have had to evolve and adapt to accommodate those changes, particularly with regard to the programs they offer. The Imperial Barrel Award competition is no exception. An AAPG staple since 2007 and one of the Association’s most prestigious and visible programs, the IBA has undergone multiple changes during the past two years.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Learn! Blog

Cores and core analyses are more important than ever as we start to use subsurface pore spaces and structure in ways we never dreamed of only a few years ago. Welcome to an interview with Diego Ibáñez from the National University of Bogotá. He goes into detail about the cutting edge National Liloteca, a library of subsurface information from throughout Colombia.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Regions and Sections

Many geologists have earned their field trip stripes in the Guadalupe Mountains in West Texas, but fewer have heard – and braved the dangers – of hiking the mysterious and mineral-rich Franklin Mountains north of El Paso. The Franklin Mountain region is a west-tilting series of horst blocks that became 5,000-7,200-foot tall mountains as a result of the Laramide orogeny. The sheer eastern escarpment exposes rocks dating from the Pennsylvanian down to 1.25-billion-year-old basement granite. It was a “field trip through time” focused on the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian formations, representing more than 100 million years of geologic history.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

And we’re back. With high oil and gas prices and strong demand driving renewed interest in production, the energy industry is returning to the unconventional resources business in a big way. The upcoming Unconventional Resources Technology Conference is once again an in-person meeting, back in Houston this month, June 20-22, with a major emphasis on practical ways to boost output and introduce efficiencies.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

NASA’s Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021, which AAPG celebrated with a live watch party. Perseverance has since explored the Séítah region and is currently at the delta front of Jezero Crater on Mars using an enhanced autonomous navigation system and under guidance from NASA/JPL controllers. As of May 13, 2022, Sol 436, Perseverance has traveled 11.4 kilometers and drilled eight core samples. The rover has returned more than 249,000 raw images that are publicly available in the mission multimedia catalog.

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

In February, TotalEnergies announced a significant light oil discovery in the Orange Basin, offshore Namibia. Reuters reported a source suggesting that the Venus-X1 well may have found more than 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent. This was the second significant discovery announced in the basin that month. The offshore continues to deliver new oil and natural gas discoveries worldwide. And as this issue hits your inbox, the offshore is the primary topic of discussion in Houston as the 2022 Offshore Technology Conference returns to NRG Park from May 2-5.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Workshop
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tuesday, 18 February Wednesday, 19 February 2025, 7:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Join us for AAPG Orphan, Abandoned, Idle and Marginal Wells Conference 2025. This workshop will focus on orphan, abandoned, idle, and marginal wells and the business opportunities and technology associated with plugging and repurposing wells, reducing methane emissions, protecting water supplies, and extending the lives of marginal wells.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Field Seminar
Houston, Texas
Saturday, 1 February 2025, 8:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m.

Everyone in Houston lives within a few miles of a bayou. Some people think of them as permanent, but the bayous are constantly changing, especially during high water events like Hurricane Harvey. This trip is a 2.5 mile walk down a section of Buffalo Bayou where we will look at the archives of past storms and discuss what to do for future storms.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 21 October 2010, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

This e-symposium covers how to conduct an interdisciplinary evaluation of mature fields to determine the best approach to recover remaining reserves.

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)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 8 November 2012, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

This talk will present a brief overview of proppants followed by a comprehensive discussion of the major considerations that are driving proppant selection in these plays.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 7 June 2012, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

Unger Field, discovered in1955, has produced 8.6 million barrels of oil from a thinly (several ft) bedded, locally cherty dolomite containing vuggy and intercrystalline porosity.

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, 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)
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
Thursday, 28 October 2021, 10:00 a.m.–11:00 p.m.

As an industry we’re constantly challenged to improve our business on a worldwide stage. How do we continue improving the safe delivery of high quality, economical wells and production where understanding of social requirements and the license to operate are rapidly changing? Join us for a conversation with a panel of drilling engineers to gain insight to their understanding of how we can meet these challenges and impact well delivery planning processes and outcomes - from clarity on deliverables, process improvements, advances in technology, to building better business models for modern decision making.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 9 September 2010, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

The presentation will focus on hydraulic fracture geometry in shales, the materials used in the fracturing process, and treatment monitoring via microseismic.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 9 December 2010, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

The Mississippian-Devonian Bakken Petroleum System of the Williston Basin is characterized by low-porosity and permeability reservoirs, organic-rich source rocks, and regional hydrocarbon charge.

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

Three-dimensional (3D) seismic-reflection surveys provide one of the most important data types for understanding subsurface depositional systems. Quantitative analysis is commonly restricted to geophysical interpretation of elastic properties of rocks in the subsurface. Wide availability of 3D seismic-reflection data and integration provide opportunities for quantitative analysis of subsurface stratigraphic sequences. Here, we integrate traditional seismic-stratigraphic interpretation with quantitative geomorphologic analysis and numerical modeling to explore new insights into submarine-channel evolution.

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Request a visit from Jacob Covault!

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

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)
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)
DL Abstract

Paleozoic North America has experienced multiple mountain building events, from Ordovician to Permian, on all margins of the continent. These have had a profound effect on the resulting complex basins and their associated petroleum systems. Subsequent uplift, erosion and overprinting of these ancient systems impedes the direct observation of their tectonic history. However, the basin sedimentary records are more complete, and provide additional insights into the timing and style of the mountain building events. In this study, we employ ~90 1D basin models, ~30 inverse flexural models, isopachs, and paleogeographic maps to better understand the Paleozoic history of North America.

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Request a visit from Kurt W. Rudolph!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
VG Abstract

In comparison with the known boundary conditions that promote salt deformation and flow in sedimentary basins, the processes involved with the mobilization of clay-rich detrital sediments are far less well established. This talk will use seismic examples in different tectonic settings to document the variety of shale geometries that can be formed under brittle and ductile deformations.

Request a visit from Juan I. Soto!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

For well over a century there have been conflicting indications of the strength of the crust and of faults and what controls them.  Much of our ignorance comes quite naturally from the general inaccessibility of the crust to measurement--in contrast with our understanding of the atmosphere, which is much more accessible to observation as well as more rapidly changing.  Crustal strength is best understood in deforming sedimentary basins where the petroleum industry has made great contributions, particularly in deforming petroleum basins because of the practical need to predict. In this talk we take a broad look at key issues in crustal strength and deformation and what we can learn from boreholes, earthquakes, active fault systems, and toy models.

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Request a visit from John Suppe!

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

Subsurface risk and uncertainty are recognized as very important considerations in petroleum geoscience. And even when volume estimates are relatively accurate, the reservoir characteristics that determine well placement and performance can remain highly uncertain. In analyzing results and work practices, three aspects of uncertainty are reviewed here.

Request a visit from Kurt W. Rudolph!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

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