Explorer Director’s Corner

This year you will have a tremendous opportunity to examine a portion of the treasury of knowledge provided by some of the top geoscientists in the world.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

WEB EXCLUSIVE: A comprehensive look at the use of cutting-edge technology in Egypt’s Western Desert – including the application of new seismic, drilling and stimulation operations – helped make AAPG’s first international Geoscience Technical Workshop a big success.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

What’s the story? A “Gallon of Gas”. The first episode in a new series by National Geographic that tells the production story behind natural resources to delivered to the consumer.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Thinking outside the box: One surprise at the recent summer NAPE was a linear driver free-piston engine that can turn watered-out wells into long-life electrical power producers.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Air power? Getting heavy drilling equipment into challenging areas – the Arctic, for example – may be easier thanks to an old idea’s merging with a new concept.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Telling a new story: “Nano-reporters” are the smallest “next big thing” for the energy industry, and what they’re finding has the potential to dramatically impact oil recovery rates. 

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

It’s not a big thing – except, perhaps, in its world-changing potential: Nanotechnology continues to grow in influence as a powerful tool in oil recovery operations. 

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Oil and gas finders are enamored with the Williston Basin these days, looking for the next big find in the upper Devonian-Lower Mississippian Bakken formation.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

There’s a lot of talk about the need for more natural gas in the energy mix. But there’s a big, unanswered question: How are we going to get the gas?

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Reason to sing? Northern Louisiana’s high-profile, still-fledgling Haynesville shale gas play, despite the challenges facing many operators, is hitting all the right notes.

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)
Short Course
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Thursday, 20 February 2025, 7:30 a.m.–4:00 p.m.

This introduction to methane monitoring, measurement, and quantification is for all those who would like to understand the requirements and regulations regarding methane emissions and to be able to design a measurement and monitoring solution, complete with the appropriate types of technologies, techniques, and safety protocols.

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

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

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)
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)
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)
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

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)
DL Abstract

Engineering of wind farms, development of carbon sequestration projects in shelfal waters, the proliferation of communication cables that connect the world, all of these things suggest that it is time to re-examine what we know about shelf processes both updip-to-downdip and along shoreline, and the influence of shelf processes on erosion and transport of sediments.

Request a visit from Lesli Wood!

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)
DL Abstract

While there are many habitats that are associated with the deposition of organic-rich marine and lacustrine source rocks, one important pathway is linked to the onset of increased basin subsidence associated with major tectonic events. A key aspect is that this subsidence is spatially variable, with the uplift of basin flanks contemporaneous with the foundering of the basin center, resulting in a steeper basin profile.

Request a visit from Kurt W. Rudolph!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

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