DWCS 504b - Reservoir Architecture of Deep Water Systems
Join us in San Diego to visit world class outcrops with the incomparable and brilliant Vitor Abreu
From Vitor Abreu:
Submarine canyons and deepwater channels are the primary conduits for the transfer of coarse sediments from the shelf to deep water fans and are major exploration targets. The evolution of southern California included many episodes of deep water sedimentation in settings ranging from a Paleozoic cratonic passive margin to Mesozoic forearc and arc settings to Cenozoic transform, pull-apart, and continental borderland basins. This course will examine six deep water systems in which large and small submarine channels and fans played major roles as sediment transport routes and sites of sedimentation.
Participants will learn to:
Assess sedimentological processes of deep water deposition and erosion and their impact in reservoir architecture.
Interpret cores, well logs and outcrops using appropriate deep water lithofacies nomenclature and definitions.
Describe deep water lithofacies in cores and relate them to stratal geometries.
Interpret key stratigraphic surfaces based on changes in lithofacies stacking and associations.
Interpret deep water environments of deposition based on lithofacies associations, stacking and diversity.
Use outcrop analogues and depositional models to better understand 3-D distribution of reservoir facies.
Tie rock properties to facies in building geologic models.
Perform environment of deposition mapping, emphasizing impact on reservoir performance and behavior.
Evaluate core, well-logs and seismic data to describe the reservoir in 3 dimensions.
This 5-day course combines field activities with class lectures and exercises, with 80% of the time spent in the field. Exercises in the field will focus on description of deepwater lithofacies, stratal geometries and recognizing key stratigraphic surfaces, emphasizing practical applications. Participants will also learn to describe cores, integrate core and well-log information with seismic to generate high-resolution environment of deposition maps of reservoirs in different settings. Engineering data are used to demonstrate how to improve prediction of reservoir performance. Cores, well-logs and seismic examples are compared to and contrasted with outcrops to help participants to extrapolate 2-D outcrop information to 3-D views of reservoir scale depositional systems.