Steve Brennan - ACE2015 Student/YP Testimonial

The Imperial Barrel Award (IBA) recognizes the highest academic achievement of exploration geoscience, and in that respect, this year was no different. What was different about this year’s IBA competition is that – due to a global pandemic – the teams had to meet, work, practice and deliver their presentations virtually. Also for the first time, the IBA awards ceremony was held completely online. We invite you to experience the Imperial Barrel Award ceremony on this video. Congratulations to all the participating teams, their advisers and mentors, volunteers, coordinators and co-chairs, and thank you to all the sponsors, without whom this year’s IBA would not have been possible. Welcome to the Awards Presentation of the 2020 Imperial Barrel Award!

Bruce Ainsworth, Principal Reservoir Geoscientist, Chevron Sequence stratigraphy based on wireline logs, cores and outcrops is entering its fourth decade of mainstream usage in industry and academia. The technique has proved to be an invaluable tool for improving stratigraphic analyses in clastic shallow marine systems. In this talk we will present a simple quantitative technique to support sequence stratigraphic interpretations. The technique, utilizes two pieces of data that are readily available from every subsurface field or outcrop study; 1) parasequence thickness (T) and 2) parasequence sandstone fraction (SF). The key assumptions are that parasequence thickness can be used as a proxy for accommodation at the time of deposition, and parasequence SF can be used as a proxy for sediment supply. This means that quantitative proxies for rates of accommodation development and sediment supply can be acquired from wireline logs, cores and outcrop data. Vertical trends in parasequence thickness divided by SF (T/SF) approximate trends expected in systems tracts for changes in the ratio of rate of accommodation development to rate of sediment supply (δA/δS). The technique, termed “TSF analysis”, can also be applied at lower-order sequence and composite sequence scales. It provides a quantitative and objective methodology for determining rank and order of sequence stratigraphic surfaces and units. Absolute TSF values can be utilized to determine shoreline, stacked shoreline and shelf margin trajectories. Case studies are presented which demonstrate the robustness of the technique across a range of different data sets. Implications and potential future applications of TSF analyses will also be discussed. 

Go deeper into the December Explorer with this lively and informative video presentation, this month featuring:  EMD president Ursula Hammes chats with Dallas Dunlap about energy minerals, the energy transition and the need for new explorationists.   Award-winning professor Paul Mann talks about geoscience education in the era of COVID.  Stephanie Nwoko talks about her journey as a woman in the energy industry: Challenges, opportunities, successes.  Plus AAPG president Rick Fritz talks about the importance of community and the AAPG Foundation, and editor Bob Merrill shares why some geoscience papers are better than others.  All that, and more, in this month’s Explorer Live!