Learn! Blog

The uptick in earthquakes corresponding with increased drilling and produced water disposal has been of great concern. Seeking scientific understanding of the reasons for increased seismicity and determining whether or not it has been induced by human activity has been a key focus. Welcome to an interview with Jeremy Boak, Ph.D., Director of the Oklahoma Geological Survey, which has demonstrated leadership in investigating induced seismicity.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer President’s Column

CERA was a diverse and dynamic week. A record-breaking 4,500 CEO’s, leaders, energy ministers and global representatives from more than 70 countries attended the March 4-9 event to ponder the future of the industry. And this year, AAPG got to play an important role in this conversation.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Geophysical Corner

A common way to understand the relationship between seismic attributes and petrophysical properties is by the use of rock physics templates, or simply by cross-plotting well log-derived elastic attributes against a color-coded petrophysical property.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Michael C. Forrest has been in the industry for more than five decades, first with Shell and then with Maxus, so one could start at any number of points in discussing his impact on geology. Perhaps the best place, though, is the eight-year period that began in 1967 when, at Shell, Forrest recognized the relationship between seismic amplitudes and the presence of hydrocarbons.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Events Blog

Whether you are an energy executive, investor, geoscientist, or consultant, AAPG’s Global Super Basins Leadership Conference, held 27-29 March 2018 in Houston, Texas at the Hilton Americas Hotel, will give you the information you need to be successful in the world’s most significant basins. Co-hosted by IHS Markit, the event will feature regional experts who will share their unique first-hand knowledge of each of the globe’s super basins.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer President’s Column

Providing energy to the world is a heroic journey. In my preface to the 2017 DPA publication “Heritage of the Petroleum Geoscientist,” I wrote that the philosopher Joseph Campbell described that the world has a few stories, and many storytellers. The “Hero’s Journey” starts with a call to adventure, overcoming trials (think of the Greek character Odysseus), and returning to tell the story.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Geophysical Corner

Part 1 of this series explained that the wave acquires the symmetry of the rock: by examining azimuthal travel times and amplitudes, we document the symmetry of the wave and learn of the symmetry of the rock.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

With the U.S. Department of the Interior calling for updated assessments of the oil and gas resources on Alaska’s North Slope, most surprisingly the tightly regulated 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, geologists are preparing for the possibility of exploring a frontier believed to be rich in hydrocarbon resources.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

After decades of being out of sight, out of mind, Panama is seeing its first modern-day collection of seismic data.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Conventional geophysics has hit a few speed bumps, but ongoing research into seismic anisotropy offers new keys to imaging unconventional resources.

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)
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

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

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)

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