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ENVS 337 Basins: Formation, Filling & Resources DR Rob Duller

This document provides an overview of the ENVS337 Basins: Formation, Filling & Resources course. The course aims to familiarize students with methods used in the hydrocarbon industry to reduce uncertainty. It will cover basin formation, filling, and hydrocarbon resources. Assessment is split between an exam and practical work involving basin analysis. Key concepts to be covered include basin types, controls on stratigraphy, depositional systems, and the hydrocarbon play concept. Practical sessions will apply these concepts to seismic and well data interpretation. The overall goal is for students to integrate multi-disciplinary data to evaluate undiscovered hydrocarbon potential, as is done in the industry.

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240 views30 pages

ENVS 337 Basins: Formation, Filling & Resources DR Rob Duller

This document provides an overview of the ENVS337 Basins: Formation, Filling & Resources course. The course aims to familiarize students with methods used in the hydrocarbon industry to reduce uncertainty. It will cover basin formation, filling, and hydrocarbon resources. Assessment is split between an exam and practical work involving basin analysis. Key concepts to be covered include basin types, controls on stratigraphy, depositional systems, and the hydrocarbon play concept. Practical sessions will apply these concepts to seismic and well data interpretation. The overall goal is for students to integrate multi-disciplinary data to evaluate undiscovered hydrocarbon potential, as is done in the industry.

Uploaded by

bobecawe
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ENVS 337 BASINS: FORMATION, FILLING & RESOURCES

Lecture 1
Dr Rob Duller

ENVS337
Staff: Rob Duller, Jim Marshall Richard Worden Slots: Mondays @ 1100 (Herdman) Tuesday @ 0900 (Chad-Bark) Assessment Exam 50% Practical work 50% Practical work in two phases: Phase 1 (Wks 1-5) workbook Phase 2 (Wks 7-10) Brent, Book Cliffs

Reading: text books


Basin Analysis (2005), Allen and Allen, Blackwell Science. NEW EDITION OUT Sequence Stratigraphy (1996), Emery and Myers, Blackwell Science.

The sedimentary record of sea level change (2003). Coe, A.L. Cambridge University Press.
Tectonic Geomorphology (2001), Burbank & Anderson, Blackwell Science.

ENVS337: reducing uncertainty


The main drive (or selling point) for research expertise in the hydrocarbon industry is to uncertainty. If we uncertainty we profit. Simple.

AIM: To become familiar with the methods / techniques routinely used by hydrocarbon companies to alleviate this uncertainty

ENVS337: HC exploration & recovery


Basin

Channel belt fill


Channel & overbank Facies & pore space

ENVS337: anticipated outcomes


Familiarity with HC industry terminology and new disciplines (petrophysics, reservoir engineering). Demonstrate how the hydrocarbon industry (exploration and production) requires the geoscientist to integrate diverse and interdisciplinary datasets .. to reduce uncertainty.
Provide the opportunity to apply your academic knowledge (sequence stratigraphy, structure, geophysics) to real-life problem solving.

Basins: Formation
What is a sedimentary basin? What drives sedimentary basin formation (initiation, duration and cessation)? What are the main types of sedimentary basins? Do diagnostic patterns of sediment dispersal and sedimentology exist?
Death Valley

Basins: Filling
Control of sea level fluctuations on the style of sedimentary basin fill Source-to-Sink analysis of depositional systems, and the sediment routing concept Real examples from surface & subsurface datasets

Basins: Resources
The hydrocarbon play and the play fairway Recoverable reserves, risk analysis Poro-perm, diagenesis, enhanced oil recovery

East Irish Sea Basin

Basin analysis

A few more

Basin Analysis interrogates the formation, fill and subsequent deformation of sedimentary basins, to provide a platform for the assessment of undiscovered hydrocarbon potential of an area, therefore guiding exploration programmes.

Key themes
Basin formation and dynamics Subsidence patterns Structural geometry Topography & sediment routing Sediment deposition Hydrocarbon play

Somme and Jackson (2012)

Basin analysis
Tectonic setting effects basin geometry and large scale stratigraphic architecture Depositional systems effect smaller scale stratigraphic variations (e.g. alluvial fans, shelf, abyssal plain etc) Basin analysis involves constraining: Spatial and temporal pattern of sediment accommodation Depositional systems Sediment source areas Sediment transport pathways

Basin analysis: a range of tools


Subsurface (seismic, wireline) - PETREL Surface (ancient & modern) Geochronology (micro / macro palaeontology, isotope geochemistry) Provenance (heavy minerals, isotope decay) Modelling (numerical, stochastic, laboratory)
A control on: sea-level variations, sedimentation rates, burial rates, sediment supply rates, thermal history .

What is a sedimentary basin?


Basin: A region of prolonged sediment accumulation generally caused by subsidence Subsidence: Downward movement of a surface relative to some datum (e.g. sea level) generating accommodation Accommodation: Space available for sediment to fill (in marine basin the region below base-level)
Bifurcating grabens bounded by linked fault segments in the Canyonlands (USA)

Basin classification
Many methods employed in the literature, generally based on one or more of:
(1) Proximity to plate boundary (margin,intracratonic) (2) Relative plate motion (tension, compression, transform (3) Lithospheric position (continent, oceanic, transitional)

The Wilson cycle


In the 1960s J. Tuzo Wilson envisaged a cyclical opening and closing of oceanic basins 1. Rifting 2. Spreading 3. Initiation of subduction 4. Basin closure

Allen & Allen (2005)

So over time basins may transform from one type to another

Basin classification (3 main types)


(1) Extensional (half graben) (2) Compressional (foreland basins) (3) Strike-slip basins (transform)

Subsidence mechanisms
Isostasy changes in lithospheric thickness: Crustal thinning [Mechanical (stretching, erosion), Thermal] Crustal thickening [Underplating (accretion of dense mantle material)]

Subsidence mechanisms
Crustal Loading lithospheric deflection
Tectonic loading (Mountain building) Volcanic loading Sediment accumulation Water & ice

Mantle convection Dynamic topography caused by mantle


convection (e.g. mantle plumes)

Basin subsidence (and surface uplift)

Distinct signature to basin type Long-term sediment accumulation First order control on successions First order control on thermal history

Accommodation
the space made available for sediment to accumulate is controlled by base level, since sediment can only accumulate long term up to base level

A change in accommodation, A, is given as:

A = E + S + C
where E is eustasy, S is subsidence, C is compaction

Why study basin successions?


Academic value Decode the past movements of the Earths surface in response to uplift and climatic regime (sediment engine) and subsidence (sediment storage).

Basin successions represent a time-integrated archive of Earths surface dynamics

Why study basin successions?


Economic value Vast accumulations of sediments that host HC reserves. If we have an understanding of how basins work, and apply our stratigraphic concepts, then we are in a better position to predict where and when hydrocarbons accumulated (i.e. reduce our uncertainty)

The hydrocarbon play: brief intro


The hydrocarbon play is a perception or model of how elements and processes interact through time to generate a hydrocarbon accumulation.
Hydrocarbon systems are comprised of a series of elements and processes that together enable the generation, migration and entrapment of hydrocarbons at various stratigraphic levels within a sedimentary basin fill.

Elements of the hydrocarbon system include source, reservoir, seal and trap.
Processes operating within hydrocarbon systems include hydrocarbon generation, expulsion and migration, as well as fluid flow, pressure and temperature related processes.

Hydrocarbon play: elements & processes


Reservoir unit capable of storing hydrocarbons and capable of yielding them to the well bore at commercial rates.

Hydrocarbon charge system comprises thermally mature petroleum source rocks capable of expelling hydrocarbons into porous and permeable carrier beds, which transport them towards sites of accumulation (traps) in the reservoir unit. Regional top seal a cap rock to the reservoir unit containing the hydrocarbons.
Hydrocarbon traps concentrate the hydrocarbons in specific locations, allowing exploitation.

Hydrocarbon play: elements & processes


Common sense perhaps .... but

Timing & time/duration: the above 4 ingredients


need to be present within the basin at specific times. For example a trap needs to have formed prior to hydrocarbons being expelled from the source etc.

The hydrocarbon play fairway


Play fairway the geographic limits of the hydrocarbon play. Proven play hydrocarbon accumulations are known to have resulted from the operation of the geological factors that define the play. Unproven play doubt as to whether the geological factors really do combine to produce a hydrocarbon accumulation.

Example of a Play map

The hydrocarbon play: brief intro

Accurate prediction of the behaviour of the hydrocarbon play is dependent on understanding the structural and stratigraphic evolution (temporal and spatial) of a sedimentary basin basin.

Practical 1: Stratigraphic relationships from seismic and well data [tomorrow @ 1000-1300]

Seismic interpretation offshore Utopesia

WEEKS 1-5: The aim of these practical sessions is to provide grounding in the techniques routinely used by geologists working in the exploration sector of the HC in their search for hydrocarbon reserves. NOTE: Practicals 1-5 form an integrated series.

Location: CTL-5-ENV Microscopes/Env. Sci. lab, room 110

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CTL

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