Oil and Gas
Oil and Gas | Clastics
Source to Sink: Provenance, Sediment Routing and Reservoir Characterisation (Southern Pyrenees, Spain)
Format and Duration:
5 days
The Cenozoic history of the Southern Pyrenees preserves whole depositional systems in multiple stages of development; the nature of the erosional realm can be reconstructed from provenance data, structural elements have demonstrable controls on sediment routing, and sedimentation packages can be traced from fluvial through paralic and shelf deposits to slope and deeper water facies. Excellent exposures allow the characteristics of different elements of the systems to be evaluated in terms of reservoir properties, sediment architecture, and reservoir connectivity.
Business Impact: An understanding of the sources of clastic sediments, the controls on the pathways of transport into and through basins and their distribution into different depositional environments is key to the characterisation and correlation of sedimentary rocks. This course facilitates integration of multi-disciplinary teams in solving basin-scale, reservoir-focussed problems.
Schedule
Duration and Training Method
This is a field course, supported by short classroom sessions.
Course Overview
Learning Outcomes
Participants will learn to:
- Apply structural studies in both source and depositional areas to determine the sediment pathway.
- Explain the interplay between tectonics, bedrock character, base level, and climatic controls on sediment supply into basins.
- Use petrographic and geochemical tools in provenance analysis and correlation through depositional systems.
- Appreciate the differences between endorheic (internally drained) and exorheic (externally drained) basin systems and the effects on stratigraphy and sediment distributions.
- Characterise reservoir facies in alluvial, fluvial, lacustrine, coastal, shelf, slope and deeper water settings.
- Review volumetrics of key sedimentary units.
- Appreciate the key controls on fluid flow and recovery in different depositional systems.
- Select appropriate field analogues for reservoirs, in the context of depositional system, basin structure and scale.
Course Content
The course will follow a transect through the Eocene southern Pyrenean foreland basins from the Tremp-Graus basin in the east through the Ainsa basin to the Jaca Basin in the west. This exorheic system will be contrasted with the internally-draining Miocene Ebro Basin to the south. The course starts and ends in Barcelona.
At each outcrop, the depositional setting will be reviewed in terms of a potential reservoir. The depositional architecture and its influence on reservoir connectivity and heterogeneity will be discussed.
Key topics to be covered are:
- Tectonic controls on sediment routing systems into the Eocene Tremp-Graus Basin and the Miocene Ebro Basin.
- Provenance analysis.
- Contrasting fluvial tracts formed in a valley-confined setting in the Eocene with distributive fluvial systems in the Miocene.
- Sediment-body geometries will be compared in fluvial, tidally-influenced coastal and shelf deposits and in slope and basinal settings.
- Reservoir characterisation of clastic depositional facies in each of the different settings, considering the scales of heterogeneities within and between reservoir units.
- The importance of analogues in building geological models of a subsurface reservoir, pitfalls and key considerations when choosing appropriate analogues for any system.
The following itinerary is intended as a guide, and may be modified according to weather and/or the participants' interests and focus.
Day 0: Arrival in Barcelona
- Course introduction and HSSE briefing
Day 1: Field
- Montllobat Pass Viewpoint - introduction to the main structural features and stratigraphy
- Mas de Faro – fluvial system, supply, and routing
- Calvera Pass – endorheic basin proximal facies
- La Roca – fluvial facies near shoreline
- Overnight in Graus
Day 2: Field
- Graus – proximal fluvial system
- Pano – coastal, barrier, and lagoonal facies
- Guaso – viewpoint of basin
- Santa Maria de Buil – marine-fluvial transition
- Overnight in Ainsa
Day 3: Field
- Ainsa viewpoint – seismic scale slope channel system
- Ainsa Quarry – slope and submarine fan channel
- Boltana – structural evolution, rotated syn-sedimentary anticline
- Broto – submarine fan lobe facies
- Core Store – slope and submarine fan channel
- Overnight in Ainsa
Day 4: Field
- Drive Ainsa to Arguis - stop to examine Campodarbe fluvial
- Belsue Atares View – deep marine to delta front transition
- Pico de Aguila transmitter tower – impact of emergent thrust front
- Roldan front view – alluvial fan context
- Roldan car park – alluvial fan detail
- La Galocha - lacustrine
- Overnight in Huesca
Day 5: Field and departure
- Albero Bajo – channel body stacking in Distributive Fluvial System
- Piraces – fluvial system architecture (endorheic system)
- Monasterio El Pueyo – viewpoint and course summary
- Transfer to Barcelona for departure
Who Should Attend and Prerequisites
The course is aimed at geoscientists, petrophysicists, and reservoir engineers who wish to better understand clastic depositional systems from basin-scale to reservoir scale. Multi-disciplinary asset teams would benefit from attendance as a group.
Instructors
Philip Hirst
Background
Phil left BP after 32 years working as a sedimentologist, latterly as the global discipline lead for sedimentology, stratigraphy, and reservoir quality. He is now an independent consultant focusing on clastic reservoir challenges and geoscience training. He is also involved in delivering lectures and supporting fieldwork for the Royal Holloway Petroleum Geoscience MSc.
Phil completed a PhD on the structural controls and alluvial architecture of Tertiary sediments in the Ebro Basin, Spain. Following this, he began work as a continental sedimentologist. As a sedimentologist in BP, Phil worked across the BP international portfolio from Argentina to Alaska and Australia to Sakhalin and many points between. He has contributed to the reservoir descriptions in access, exploration, and development ventures with frontier field work being an important component; this has included field work in Turkey, Yemen, Sakhalin, Algeria, Jordan/Saudi Arabia and Brazil.
Phil has evaluated many of the more complex depositional and diagenetic issues in BP, such as opaline deposits, tuffaceous sandstones, and the role of chlorite in sandstones. However, it is the glacial reservoirs of North Africa and the Middle East that have been a particular favourite area of study. He co-edited the Geological Society, London 2016 Special Volume No 436 "The Value of Outcrop Studies in Reducing Subsurface Uncertainty".
Affiliations and Accreditation
Visiting Lecturer, Royal Holloway UoL
PhD University of Cambridge
BA Oxford University
Geological Society, London
International Association of Sedimentologists
SEPM, the Society for Sedimentary Geology
Courses Taught
N530: Shore to Shelf Depositional Systems (Virtual Outcrops)
N533: Deepwater Depositional Systems (Virtual Outcrops)
N534: Delta Plain to Base of Slope Reservoir Systems: Outcrop, Seismic, and Production Analogues in a Sequence Stratigraphic
N544: Source to Sink: Provenance, Sediment Routing and Reservoir Characterisation (Southern Pyrenees, Spain)
N387: Exploration and Development in Fluvio-Lacustrine Systems
N713: Reservoir Characterisation for Reservoir Modelling
Gary Nichols
Background
Gary is Head of Technical Development for RPS Training and is responsible for developing learning and development strategies, new energy subject areas, and different modes of delivery.
Before joining RPS Energy to work with the Nautilus Training Alliance, Gary taught at Royal Holloway University of London and the University Centre on Svalbard covering undergraduate and MSc courses in Sedimentology, Sequence Stratigraphy, Petroleum Geology and Sedimentary Basins plus MSc Petroleum Geoscience courses in Clastic sedimentology, Sequence Stratigraphy and Sedimentary Basin models.
Key research topics include clastic sedimentology and sedimentary basin analysis; climatic and tectonic controls on sedimentation; fluvial sedimentology; basin-scale patterns of sedimentation and the architecture of basin-fill successions; endorheic basins. Field studies have been carried out in flexural basins in Spain, Greece, USA and Spitsbergen, extensional basins in Madagascar, Greece, northern Thailand, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and in arc-related settings in Antarctica, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. Detailed sedimentological studies include alluvial fan and fluvial sedimentation in continental basins and the reservoir characteristics of fluvial successions. Gary has published over 100 scientific papers and a widely-used textbook 'Sedimentology and Stratigraphy'. He is currently President of the Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM).
Affiliations and Accreditation
PhD University of Cambridge
BSc London University, Honors
C.Geol - Chartered Geologist
Courses Taught
N108: Exploration and Geological Model Development in Fluvial Reservoirs (Pyrenees, Spain)
N155: Introduction to Clastic Depositional Systems: a Petroleum Perspective
N269: Sequence Stratigraphy and Subsurface Prediction: Methods, Limitations and New Developments (Isle of Wight, UK)
N387: Exploration and Development in Fluvio-Lacustrine Systems
N403: Reservoir Sedimentology of Fluvial - Shallow Marine Facies (Isle of Wight, UK)
N418: Tectonics, Sedimentology and Stratigraphy of Coal-Bearing Basins
N432: Clastic Reservoir Characterisation for Appraisal and Development (Southern Pyrenees, Spain)
N544: Source to Sink: Provenance, Sediment Routing and Reservoir Characterisation (Southern Pyrenees, Spain)
W017: North Sea Reservoirs Series - Triassic Reservoirs Overview
Accreditation and Certification
CEU: 4 Continuing Education Units
PDH: 40 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.