Oil and Gas

Oil and Gas | Structure and Tectonics

Advanced Structural Interpretation for Petroleum Exploration and Development in Fold and Thrust belts (Pyrenees, Spain)

Course Code: N325
Instructors:  Ken McClayJosep Anton Munoz
Course Outline:  Download
Format and Duration:
6 days

Summary

There is renewed focus on hydrocarbon exploration in fold and thrust belts, both offshore in deepwater fold belts in passive and active margins, and also in sub-aerial belts such as the Sub-Andean fold and thrust belts of South America and particularly in the northern Zagros in Kurdistan, Iraq. This course aims to provide the participants with the modern concepts and tools to carry out effective exploration and development in these structurally complex terranes.

Feedback

Great course! I learned an immense amount over the week, I will now be able to have some even more productive conversations with our company's structural geologists! Thanks

Duration and Training Method

A six-day field course. The course will be held in the Ainsa and Tremp regions of the southern Pyrenees fold and thrust belt. The general format will be classroom lectures and practicals in the mornings followed by field exercises in the afternoons.

Course Overview

Participants will learn to:

  1. Examine thrusts and related structural styles in the field including different fault-related folds and thrust sequences.
  2. Identify the structural features typical of regions where multiple deformation events have occurred, in particular the reactivation of faults and structural inversion.
  3. Recognise growth strata and decipher the kinematics of structures from their analysis.
  4. Compare and contrast the structures produced in extensional, and contractional tectonic regimes and discuss the influence of salt on structural styles.
  5. Integrate surface data with subsurface data (seismic and well data) and apply this knowledge in the construction of cross sections and 3D structural models.
  6. Apply the knowledge gained to improve structural interpretations or to validate interpretations.

The Pyrenees is a unique natural laboratory for fold and thrust terranes and shows a great variety of structural styles involving sedimentary successions in different depositional settings. A deepwater fold and thrust belt is exposed in the Ainsa area where structures related to the thrust system, such as fault-related folds and extensional collapse features, are very well expressed. These are good analogues for deepwater fold and thrust systems such as the Atlantic margins and areas in SE Asia. Pyrenean structures also involve a thick succession of Mesozoic and Paleogene carbonates, some of which are detached on Triassic salts giving rise to classic salt tectonic geometries. Fracture systems developed in these carbonates also have a unique potential as analogues for the Zagros fold and thrust belt and other belts involving fractured carbonates. The last stages of the Pyrenean evolution are characterized by emergent thrust systems into a continental foreland basin which display the interaction between thrust-related structures and continental syn-orogenic sediments. Reactivation of Mesozoic extensional faults has resulted in spectacular inversion structures which will also be examined on this course.

Itinerary

Day 0:

  • Arrive in Barcelona

Day 1:

  • Travel to Ainsa

Afternoon
Classroom session 1

  • Introduction to the course – aims, objectives and methodologies
  • Geodynamics of fold and thrust belts – deepwater fold belts – sub-aerial fold belts
  • Hydrocarbon systems in fold and thrust belts

Day 2:

Classroom session 2

  • Introduction to the tectonics and evolution of the Spanish Pyrenees
  • Fundamental thrust systems – geometries fault-related folds

Field Session 1

  • Anatomy of a foreland fold and thrust belt – Ainsa transect – Part 1
  • A transect from the basement-involved thrust sheets of the axial zone to the central part of the fold and thrust belt – examples of emergent basement involved thrusts, deformed platformal carbonates and allocthonous thrust sheets above foreland basin sediments.

Day 3:

Classroom session 3

  • Mechanics of fold and thrust belts
    - Deepwater fold belts
    - Sub-aerial fold belts
    - Dynamic Coulomb wedge systems – analogue and numerical models
  • These principal topics will be illustrated with field, seismic examples together with analogue and numerical model examples.

Field Session 2

  • Anatomy of a foreland fold and thrust belt – Ainsa transect – Part 2
  • Deepwater fold and thrust belts. Geometry and kinematic evolution. Extensional structures associated with fault-related folds.  

Day 4:

Classroom session 4

  • Thrust fault-related fold systems
    - Fault bend folds
    - Fault-propagation folds
    - Detachment folds
    - Hybrid folds
  • These principal topics will be illustrated with field, seismic and numerical model examples.  Syntectonic growth strata will also be analysed in these systems

Field Session 3

  • Detachment and fault-propagation folds – Ainsa basin
  • Detailed analyses of fault-related folds and syntectonic growth strata
  • Travel to Tremp at the end of Day 4.

Day 5:

Classroom session 5

  • Fracture systems in fold and thrust belts
  • Principles
  • Fracture systems in folded carbonates
  • These principal topics will be illustrated with field, seismic and numerical model examples.  Syntectonic growth strata will also be analysed in these systems

Field Session 4

  • A transect from the central part of the fold and thrust belt to the foreland basin– examples of stacked thrust systems, detachment folds and growth strata in foreland basin sediments. Thrust sequences.

Day 6:

Classroom session 6

  • Inversion structures in fold and thrust belts
    - Principals of inversion
    - Modelling of inversion
    - Effects of pre-existing basement features in fold and thrust belts
    - Fracture systems in inversion structures
  • These principal topics will be illustrated with field, seismic and numerical model examples.  Syntectonic growth strata will also be analysed in these systems

Field Session 5

  • Fracture systems in detachment and fault-propagation folds
  • Detailed analyses of fracture systems, characterization and analyses
  • Inversion structures – Tremp basin
  • Boixols and San Cornelli anticlines – inversion folds in carbonate platformal sequences, growth strata and fracture systems in carbonates

Day 7:

  • Return to Barcelona
  • End of Course

Geologists, geophysicists and seismic interpreters working in fold and thrust belts in both exploration and development phases of operations. Reservoir engineers will also gain an improved understanding of the effects of contractional stresses on the geometries and internal deformation of carbonate and clastic reservoirs. The course is aimed at those who wish to improve their knowledge and understanding of contractional systems to enhance their predictive capability in the subsurface.

Ken McClay

Background
Ken has carried out wide-ranging research on all aspects of structural geology applied to both the mining and petroleum industries.  This has included field-based research on areas such as the Moine Thrust Zone, NW Scotland, the Spanish Pyrenees, Indonesia, Yemen, Australia, Canada, USA, Chile, Argentina, Greenland, Turkey, Ethiopia and Gulf of Suez – Red Sea Egypt.  He has directed and carried out regional and detailed mapping programs in the Canadian Cordillera, Newfoundland, SW USA, Alaska, NW Scotland, Argentina, Chile, UK, Spain, Norway, Brazil, Egypt and Yemen.  His research interests include extensional, strike-slip, thrust and inversion terranes.  He runs a large experimental analogue modeling laboratory for the simulation of fault structures and sedimentary architectures at Royal Holloway University of London.  Ken has written a book for mapping structures in the field, edited four major volumes on Thrust Tectonics and has published widely on structural geology and tectonics (over 150 papers in international journals).  He is a consultant for both the international mining and petroleum industries.  He has given many short courses to industry in Indonesia, India, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Norway, UK, USA, Australia, Egypt, Canada, Iran, Alaska, the Philippines and PNG. He was the 1994–1995 Bennison (USA) and 1999 Roy M. Huffington (International) Distinguished Lecturer for AAPG.

Affiliations and Accreditation
DSc University of Adelaide - Structural Geology and Tectonics
PhD Imperial College, University of London -Structural Geology
MSc Imperial College, University of London- Structural Geology and Rock Mechanics
BS Adelaide University Australia, Honors - Economic Geology
Institution of Mining and Metallurgy - Chartered Engineer - Fellow
Geological Society of London - Fellow
AAPG - Member

Courses Taught
N016: Structural Geology for Petroleum Exploration (Nevada, USA)
N116: Structural Geology for Petroleum Exploration (Somerset, England)
N220: Structural Geology and Seismic Interpretation for Petroleum Exploration and Production
N325: Advanced Structural Interpretation for Petroleum Exploration and Development in Fold and Thrust belts

Josep Anton Munoz

Background
Josep Anton Muñoz is professor of structural geology at the University of Barcelona and head of the Geodynamics and Basin Analysis Research Group.

He worked for the Servei Geològic de Catalunya from 1985 to 1990, when he joined the University of Barcelona. His research interests include the structure of sedimentary basins in different tectonic settings (contractional, extensional and strike slip), tectonics of orogenic systems, tectono-sedimentary relationships, salt tectonics, and construction and validation of 3-D structural models. He has mostly worked in the Pyrenees, but also in many other areas such as the Alps, Andes, Antarctica, Betics, Morrocco Atlantic margin, Flinders Ranges, Gulf of Mexico, Hellenids, Tanzania and Zagros Mountains. His research is based on field studies and their integration with seismic and well data. He has led the development of new methodologies for the 3D construction of structural models ant their validation combining numerical and analogue models. He has conducted many research projects and courses (both field and indoor) for oil companies and international research institutions. He has over 260 published papers, half of them in SCI international journals. He was awarded in 2006 by the Generalitat de Catalunya as a Distinct Researcher.

Affiliations and Accreditation
PhD University of Barcelona
MSc University of Barcelona - Geology

Courses Taught
N056: Turbidite Systems and Their Response to growing Structures (Pyrenees, Spain)
N142: Structure and Fault Systems in Hydrocarbon Exploration (Southern Pyrenees, Spain)
N232: Salt Tectonics: Global Styles, Spanish Outcrops (Basque-Cantabrian Pyrenees, Spain)
N325: Advanced Structural Interpretation for Petroleum Exploration and Development in Fold and Thrust belts

CEU: 4.8 Continuing Education Units
PDH: 48 Professional Development Hours
Certificate: Certificate Issued Upon Completion
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