Energy Transition
Energy Transition | Energy Transition Fundamentals
Mitigating Geohazards in Seafloor Settings
Format and Duration:
2 days
4 sessions
The course is aimed at geologists, geophysicists, engineers, and managers working in areas where seafloor bottom processes and deposits impact design and maintenance of emplacements. Through a combination of lectures and case studies, the participants are exposed to many of the aspects that influence design and maintenance of seafloor emplacements with emphasis on predicting, mapping, and quantifying substrate character and predicting variables that influence shelf geomorphology.
Business Impact: This course will provide critical understanding and hands-on skills for participants working in areas where shelf processes and deposits impact the design and maintenance of wind energy and communications emplacements or success in drilling exploration and development wells.
Feedback
I have gained a better understanding of the shelf depositional processes that create hazards in drilling.
Schedule
Duration and Training Method
This is a classroom course comprising a mixture of lectures, discussion, exercises, and case studies. We will work with seismic data, downhole borehole data, and high-resolution sonar and sub-bottom profiler data.
Course Overview
Learning Outcomes
Participants will learn how to:
- Interpret a variety of different types of data (i.e. seismic, core, samples, strength data, etc.) and integrate those data to derive the condition and state of shelves.
- Translate depositional form into process, then process into sedimentology, and create a risk matrix to assess the implications to business objectives.
- Differentiate tectonic structure from depositional architecture.
- Apply the tools of observation, annotation, and interpretation of various scales of seascape morphology, including regional and localized features.
- Define and justify critical criteria for assessing hazards in a shelf setting and translate those assessments to map exclusion zones.
- Estimate risk, uncertainty, and bias in data interpretation, and utilize this knowledge to make decisions.
Course Content
The lecture content provides a summary of the fundamentals of marine seafloor systems. The principal goal of the course is to provide geoscientists and engineers with methodologies and hands-on experience in seismic, logs, and core interpretation of these deposits, as well as a background in the variables that influence the marine shelf and deepwater setting.
The course is intended to generate instructive discussion among experienced professionals, moderated and guided by the tutor. Exercises will be assigned each day to reinforce the lectures and class participants will complete exercises in class or overnight. Results will be reviewed by participants and instructor in class or prior to the next morning’s lecture. Lectures are in 3, 4.5-hour blocks each day, and the instructor will be available informally to answer questions throughout the day.
The following indicates the planned content of the course.
DAY 1 Depositional Processes and Deposits in Global Marine Settings
- Meet and Greet, Intro and Structure of the Course
- Course Introduction to Seafloor Systems and Processes
- Background in Seafloor Physical Processes and Deposits
- EXERCISE Mapping Shelf Tidal Architectures
- Structure of the Seafloor
DAY 2 Interpreting Seafloor Character
- DAY 1 Review
- Tools and Tool Resolution for Interpreting the Sub-Seafloor
- Interpreting the Geomorphology of Submarine Substrates
- A Stratigraphic Framework for the Shelf, Slope, and Deepmarine
- EXERCISE Mapping Young Sequences
DAY 3 Hazards Recognition and Assessment
- DAY 2 Review and Q and A
- Forces Acting on Seafloor Emplacements
- Shallow, Water Flows, and Overpressure
- EXERCISE: Interpreting Shallow Threats
DAY 4 Submarine Mass Failures, Exclusions Zones, and Risks
- REVIEW Day 3 Exercise
- Submarine Mass Failures
- EXERCISE Seismic Morphology of Submarine Mass Failures
- Review Exercise
- Currents in the Ocean
- Exclusion Zones Map (EZM) Construction
- WRAP UP
Who Should Attend and Prerequisites
The course is aimed at geoscientists, geophysicists, engineers, and managers who are planning and constructing emplacements in marine settings.
Instructors
Lesli Wood
Background
My technical expertise is in clastic sedimentology, sequence stratigraphy, and seismic geomorphology. I specialize in the study of land margins and the processes, deposits, and fluid systems that characterize them. This interest extends to systems on other planets, as well as on Earth. I have extensive experience in physical modeling of clastic processes and a strong interest in predictive models of complex geomorphic response to extrinsic and intrinsic changes.
In addition, I have research interests in gas hydrates, shale tectonics, and the biotic and fluid systems of deep-ocean mud volcanoes. My industry experience includes integrated study of petroleum systems, exploration prospect development and operations, and regional hydrocarbon prospect evaluation. I am well versed in the integration of biostratigraphic, oxygen isotopic, geochemical, seismic, and well log and production data for subregional and regional sequence stratigraphic and basin analysis.
Affiliations and Accreditation
PhD Colorado State University - Earth Resources
MS University of Arkansas - Geology
BS Arkansas Tech University - Geology
Courses Taught
N043: Gulf of Mexico Petroleum Systems
N072: Workshop in Geological Seismic Interpretation: Deep Marine Systems
N292: Deepwater Depositional System Stratigraphy for Exploration and Development (Arkansas, USA)
Accreditation and Certification
CEU: 1.4 Continuing Education Units
PDH: 14 Professional Development Hours
Certificate: Certificate Issued Upon Completion
RPS is accredited by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) and is authorized to issue the IACET CEU. We comply with the ANSI/IACET Standard, which is recognised internationally as a standard of excellence in instructional practices.
We issue a Certificate of Attendance which verifies the number of training hours attended. Our courses are generally accepted by most professional licensing boards/associations towards continuing education credits. Please check with your licensing board to determine if the courses and certificate of attendance meet their specific criteria.