HomeScience Discipline Sedimentology and Stratigraphy

Sedimentology and Stratigraphy

Explorer Foundation Update

Toshimi Fujikawa, a geology teacher in San Lorenzo, Calif., who has been praised by her peers for passionately helping students to discover knowledge and relevance in the geological world where they live, has been named the 2022 AAPG Foundation’s Teacher of the Year.

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.

Show more
American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Division Column DEG

After the past year as president of the Division of Environmental Geosciences, my three big takeaways are that the world needs energy, all forms of energy are in transition, and geoscientists are needed to explore for and develop energy – now and in the future. In every future energy scenario, oil and gas will be needed for decades at various levels to contribute to the global energy mix.

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.

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

The AAPG Southwest Section Convention explored a four-dimensional multiverse of geology and reservoirs, combining regional overviews with multi-scale measurements of rocks and sediments, and analyzing rocks in the fourth dimension of geologic time. The result is “Resology,” which general chair Ben Davis defines as “the study of geology and rock reservoirs at big and small scales.” He told conference attendees, “The goal of Resology is effective and efficient hydrocarbon production.”

Show more
American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

The small town of Cunningham, Kansas lies about 65 miles straight west of Wichita on U.S. Highway 54. It was incorporated in 1887 as a commercial center for farmers and ranchers in that part of south-central Kansas. Hard winter wheat was the main cash crop, while herds of beef and dairy cattle were a close second source of income. This activity characterized the culture of Cunningham into the early years of the 20th century. That is, until a new industry was introduced to Kansas when, in 1915, oil was discovered in the El Dorado field northeast of Wichita.

Show more
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.

Show more
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.

Show more
American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

There are two main oil and gas producing sedimentary areas in France: the Paris Basin and the Aquitaine Basin. The presence of oil seeps and bitumen deposits has been known since ancient times in the western part of the Aquitaine basin, a 35,000-square-kilometer triangular polygon bordered to the north by the city of Bordeaux, to the east by Toulouse and to the south by the Pyrenees Mountain chain separating France from Spain. These hydrocarbon shows were observed close to surface anticlinal structures such as the Sainte-Suzanne dome, southwest of Pau or in the caprocks of salt diapirs at Salies de Bearn and Dax to the north.

Show more
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)
Webinar
Virtual Webinar
Tuesday, 14 April 2020, 4:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m.

The Upper Jurassic (Oxfordian) Smackover Formation is one of the most prolific oil and gas producers in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico coastal plain, where it deposited in a proximal carbonate ramp. This study is a comprehensive characterization of the depositional environment of the Smackover based on 3D seismic and well data from wells in the Vocation and Appleton oil fields located in the Conecuh and Manila Sub-basins in southwest Alabama.

Show more
American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Webinar
Virtual Webinar
Wednesday, 10 June 2020, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.

Gil Machado is a Petroleum Exploration Geologist with a Ph.D in stratigraphy and source rock characterization. Gil's presentation 'Reducing Uncertainty and Increasing Chances of Success Using Biostratigraphy', will explore the role of biostratigraphy in the exploration workflow. Several success cases from around the World will be detailed, showing the uses of this discipline for sedimentation age determination, paleoenvironmental interpretation and source rock characterization. Join Gil Machado via Zoom on June 10 at 12:00 GMT+1

Show more
American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 10 November 2011, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

This work investigates how heterogeneity can be defined and how we can quantify this term by describing a range of statistical heterogeneity (e.g. coefficient of variation and the Lorenz coefficient).

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, 24 September 2020, 8:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m.

In the past 3 decades the sequence stratigraphy jargon has proliferated, resulting in multiple definitions of the same surface or new surfaces and units based on drawings of deposition in response to relative changes in sea level. The close association between base-level changes, the formation of surfaces, and specific stratal stacking that define systems tracts are at the heart of the confusion. This webinar is proposed a back-to-basics approach, emphasizing key observations that can be made from any geologic data: lithofacies, lithofacies association, vertical stacking, stratal geometries, and stratal terminations.

Show more
American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 11 November 2010, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

This e-symposium is ideal for geologists, geophysicists, engineers and other geoscientists who are involved in gas shale exploration and production.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 7 November 2013, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

This e-symposium presentation places the interpretation of deep-water turbidites discernible in 3-D seismic inversion data within a geological context.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Webinar
Virtual Webinar
Tuesday, 31 October 2023, 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m.

Mississippian strata in the Ottawa County, Oklahoma, within the Tri-State Mining District, are a well-known hosts to MVT lead and zinc ore deposits. They are also important to our understanding of the geological story of the southern midcontinent. Join us for a virtual float trip down the Spring River in northern Oklahoma. We will explore the Middle Mississippian (Visean; upper Osagean-lower Meramecian) strata of the Boone Group as exposed in roadcuts, quarries, and natural outcroppings across Ottawa County in northeastern Oklahoma.

Show more
American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Webinar
Virtual Webinar
Wednesday, 29 November 2023, 9:00 a.m.–10:00 a.m.

Join us for November’s AAPG Women's Network 2023 Short-Short Course Series on Wednesday, November 29th from 9-11 am (CT) with Dr. Alicia Kahn to discuss biostratigraphy and micropaleontology, largely as it pertains to oil and gas exploration.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 17 March 2011, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

This e-symposium will provide information on which tools, processes, and procedures all geoscientists, engineers, and technical professionals working in shale plays need to understand and implement.

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.

Show more

Request a visit from Tao Sun!

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.

Show more

Request a visit from Keith Gerdes!

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)

Related Interests

See Also ...