Oil and Gas
Oil and Gas | Clastics
Characteristics of Alluvial, Coastal, and Shallow Marine Reservoir Successions for Reservoir Management, Gas Storage, and CO2 Sequestration (Utah, USA)
Next Event
This course examines the three-dimensional stacking patterns and internal reservoir properties of paralic successions for reservoir evaluation and management, using the Cretaceous succession of the Henry Mountains and Capitol Reef National Park, south-central Utah, USA.
Business impact: attendees will learn to recognize key reservoir facies of paralic successions, their geometries and stacking patterns and reservoir properties. The applications to oil and gas reservoir management and CO2 storage will be considered.
Schedule
Duration and Training Method
This is a field-based course in Utah with a minor classroom component composed of presentations and practical exercises. Practical exercises will utilize surface exposures continuous over 10s of kilometers in both depositional dip and strike directions, and subsurface examples based on wireline logs. Some exercises will be team-based.
Course Overview
Learning Outcomes
Participants will learn to:
- Assess the sedimentology, ichnology, and stratigraphic stacking patterns of paralic (coastal fluvial, deltaic, and shallow marine) deposits using superb surface exposures.
- Evaluate and correlate key stratigraphic surfaces in paralic stratigraphic successions in order to establish reservoir and storage volume stacking patterns.
- Explain the hierarchy of stacking patterns via recognition of parasequences and sequences, and their bounding discontinuities.
- Assess the relative influences of sea-level change, sediment supply variation, and subsidence regime on facies stacking patterns.
- Address reservoir geometries and lateral extents in three dimensions, based on continuous outcrop.
- Summarize the changes in reservoir properties that arise from changes in controlling factors (paleogeography, change in sea-level, subsidence, and/or sediment supply.
- Integrate the patterns observed in outcrop and established in correlation exercises to better predict reservoir development at distances remote from data points for hydrocarbon exploration, gas storage, and CO2 sequestration.
Course Content
Outcrops and subsurface examples will be used to demonstrate stratigraphic architecture of paralic successions, facilitate correlation using key surfaces, and illustrate reservoir geometries and other properties of reservoir bodies. The field area includes cliff exposures of coastal fluvial, deltaic, and shallow marine successions with complex reservoir architectures, that are laterally continuous over tens of kilometers in both depositional strike and dip orientations, allowing evaluation of reservoir characteristics from the pore scale to that of entire depositional systems.
Day 0: Convene at Salt Lake City International Airport, collect rental vehicles, travel to Torrey, UT (3.5 hours) and conduct an introduction to the field course and safety briefing.
Day 1: Traverse through stratigraphy from Permian to Jurassic in Capitol Reef Monocline, to Cretaceous succession of Henry Mountains Syncline. Introduction to recognition of genetic stratigraphic units (parasequences, sequences) and their key surfaces (sequence boundaries, flooding surfaces, maximum flooding surfaces), discussion of relevance to reservoir management. Late afternoon or evening classroom session on sedimentology and stratigraphy of fluvial and coastal fluvial depositional systems, facies, and reservoir characteristics. Core-based exercise on Morrison formation fluvial reservoirs.
Day 2: Fluvial reservoirs. Begin with views of the Triassic Chinle Formation, part of a continent-scale alluvial drainage network, consider incisional topography between component members of the Chinle. Stop in Capitol Reef NP and walk to Natural Bridge, to view the dryland fluvial Kayenta Formation that forms a parting between thick, eolian sandstones of the Wingate Sandstone below and the Navajo Sandstone above. Views of Jurassic Morrison Formation to examine alluvial channel body and reservoir architecture in two and three dimensions.
Day 3: Classroom session on coastal, deltaic, and shallow marine depositional systems, facies, and reservoir characteristics. Ferron Sandstone deltaic and incised fluvial stratigraphy at Caineville Gap (western limb of syncline) and at Neilson’s Wash (eastern limb of syncline), compare and contrast reservoir body types and architectures in the two locations and discuss prediction of reservoir facies and properties in the east based on the western exposure.
Day 4: Incised valley fill reservoirs in upper Ferron Sandstone at Factory Butte – examination at cliff face scale, and also close up to evaluate intra-reservoir sandstone body architecture. View of Muley Canyon Sandstone in Factory Butte, assessment of reservoir stacking patterns, cross-sectional geometry, and zonation.
Day 5: Examination of Dakota Sandstone at Blue Valley, including spectacular, heterolithic estuarine channel fill, consideration of reservoir performance and zonation in this productive unit. Summary of major course outcomes at outcrop. PM – drive to Salt Lake City via I-70 and US Hwy 6 through Price to Spanish Fork, thence I-15 to SLC (Views of Book Cliffs, proximal foreland conglomerates at Red Narrows). Conclude trip by 5 pm at SLC International Airport.
Who Should Attend and Prerequisites
Exploration and development geoscientists, including those concerned with CO2 sequestration and gas storage, who are seeking training in the characterization of paralic (coastal and shallow marine) reservoir successions, or a refresher course. Reservoir engineers seeking information about stratigraphic controls on reservoir behavior and concepts of reservoir zonation. Asset team managers who are responsible for management of paralic reservoir successions.
Instructors
Christopher Fielding
Background
Chris Fielding worked for four years as a petroleum sedimentologist with BP Exploration Co. Ltd., based in London, Guangzhou (China) and Aberdeen before taking up an academic post at the University of Queensland (Australia) in 1986. At UQ, he rose to the rank of Associate Professor (Reader), and from 2001 to 2002 was Director (Academic) of the Department of Earth Sciences. In 2002, he moved to the University of Nebraska- Lincoln to become the inaugural Mr & Mrs J.B. Coffman Chair in Sedimentary Geology, and more recently in 2021 to the University of Connecticut.
At UConn, Chris teaches undergraduate Sedimentology/Stratigraphy, Earth Surface Processes, and Scientific Communication, and is an instructor at the Wasatch-Uinta Geology Field Camp. He also teaches graduate-level Sequence Stratigraphy and Subsurface Exploration Geology courses. He advises a group of graduate students working on projects in the field of applied stratigraphy and sedimentology.
Chris’ research interests span the stratigraphy and sedimentology of fluvial, coastal and shallow marine successions, their paleoclimatic archives and applications to resource exploration and production. His current research emphasizes controls on stratigraphic stacking patterns in low-accommodation systems. He maintains active field-based research programs in Utah and Wyoming, and also works in Atlantic Canada, Australia and Antarctica.
Affiliations and Accreditation
PhD University of Durham, England - Geology
BSc University of Edinburgh, Scotland - Geology - Honors
Geological Society of America (Fellow), AAPG, AGU, SEPM (Hon. Member)
Editor-in-Chief of the journal Sedimentology (1998-2002)
Editor-in-Chief of the journal Sedimentary Geology (2005-2008)
Editor-in-Chief of the journal Earth-Science Reviews (2018-present)
President of SEPM Society for Sedimentary Geology (2011-2012)
Courses Taught
N309: Fluvial Sedimentology and Stratigraphic Architecture based on Observations of the Platte, Loup and Elkhorn Rivers (Nebraska, USA)
N681: Characteristics of Alluvial, Coastal, and Shallow Marine Reservoir Successions for Reservoir Management, Gas Storage, and CO2 Sequestration (Utah, USA)