N009 Sedimentology, Stratigraphy and Reservoir Geology of Deepwater Clastic Systems (County Clare, Ireland)
Course Facts
- Course Code:
- N009
- Duration:
- 5 days
- Type:
- Field
- Physical Demand:
- Low
- CEU:
- 4.8 Continuing Education Units
- PDH:
- 48 Professional Development Hours
- Certificate:
- Certificate Issued Upon Completion
Summary
The focus of this course is an outcrop examination of basin floor, slope and shelf margin architecture and stratigraphy. Controls on deepwater sedimentation are discussed in detail, specifically high amplitude sea level changes, sediment supply and the importance of varied gravity flow processes to reservoir elements and their distribution. Observations and interpretations are supported by lectures, case studies, analogues, and behind-outcrop core and wireline log data.
Duration and Training Method
This is a five-day course, consisting primarily of field work with classroom tuition, in an approximately 80:20 ratio. Classwork will comprise keynote presentations, case studies and reviews of each day of fieldwork. This course will make use of Digital Outcrop Imagery (DOI).
Participants will learn how to:
- Validate the range of gravity flow processes and products, their recognition in the subsurface and reservoir implications.
- Evaluate the temporal and spatial distribution of the key elements of sand-rich basin-floor turbidite and associated slope systems.
- Characterise the stratigraphic architecture, scale and distribution of potential reservoir units in sand-rich turbidite systems.
- Evaluate reservoir description tools and techniques; cores, logs and seismic, for the variety of depositional settings examined.
- Assess the contrasting nature of internal reservoir characteristics through a variety of deepwater depositional elements and its implications for exploration and exploitation risks.
- Assess the large-scale controls that can operate on deepwater depositional systems, with particular emphasis on high-resolution sequence stratigraphy in basin floor, slope and associated deltaic systems.
- Evaluate regional scale links from basin margin to basin floor settings and make well constrained predictions of reservoir presence and potential quality.
The field-based component will investigate high resolution sequence stratigraphy, stratigraphic architecture and depositional processes in basin floor, slope and associated deltaic environments in the West Clare Carboniferous Basin. The glacio-eustatic, high frequency and high amplitude sea-level cycles and high-resolution chronostratigraphic framework of the Carboniferous makes it an ideal analogue for the late Cenozoic and Pleistocene continental margin stratigraphy that forms the major exploration plays in the Gulf of Mexico and Western Atlantic.
Attendees will examine a superbly-exposed basin fill and explore the contrasting reservoir components that are developed from the deepwater basin floor through the slope to shelf margin settings within a sequence stratigraphic context. Comparison with subsurface examples will be made throughout the course and behind outcrop well data will be included as appropriate.
The Clare Basin succession allows examination of shelf margin, slope, proximal through distal fan to deep basin settings. The class provides a unique opportunity to view all these elements in a linked stratigraphic context. Focus will be on the key components and stratigraphic architecture of sand-rich turbidite systems, slope deposits and stratigraphic links to up-dip sediment supply systems. Gravity-flow processes, their origin and deposits will be examined. The contrasting nature of reservoir elements through a variety of systems tracts and their implications for exploration and exploitation risks will be the central theme of the course. Reservoir description tools and techniques will be illustrated and their use discussed for the variety of depositional settings examined. Themes are:
- Controls on deepwater depositional systems
- Deltaic sediment supply systems and evidence for high amplitude sea-level cycles. Contrasts between low stand shelf edge deltas and incised valleys and highstand and transgressive systems tracts. Implications for deepwater sedimentation
- Gravity flow processes and products; their recognition and implications
- Clastic slope systems. Zones of coarse sediment by-pass or significant exploration targets?
- Basin floor fans. Simple piles of sand or complicated reservoir architectures?
- Subsurface Case Studies
Below is the planned itinerary for the course. Please note that the itenerary may vary due to weather and tides.
Day 0: Arrival
- Arrival and transfer to the small coastal community of Kilkee
- Late afternoon, walking excursion to the cliffs near Kilkee followed by a group dinner in the hotel
Day 1: Lecture and Field
- Introduction to the Clare Basin stratigraphy and deepwater systems
- Uppermost slope and shelf margin architecture
- Deltaic sequence stratigraphy and implications to deepwater sedimentation
Day 2: Field
- Turbidite systems; sedimentology and stratigraphy
- Slumps, slides, debris flows and slope sands; including channels, growth faults and overbanks
Day 3: Field
- Boat trip
- Architecture of deepwater channels and related sheets
- Deepwater processes and products
Day 4: Lectures and Field
- Summary shelf margin to deepwater stratigraphy and models for deepwater sedimentation
- Inner fan sedimentology and stratigraphy; channel complexes, slumps and condensed sections
- Mid-fan sedimentology and stratigraphy; channels, sheets and sediment by-pass surfaces
- Fan fringe sedimentology and stratigraphy; deep basin mudrocks and distal fan elements
Day 5: Lectures. Core store, and Field
- Synthesis of deepwater systems and key lessons from the Clare Basin
- Core store visit
- Outer fan stratigraphy; sheets
Day 6: Departure
- Transfer to Shannon and departure
Who should attend
The course is relevant to all subsurface Geoscientists who wish to broaden and deepen their knowledge of deep marine clastic plays. Non-geoscience staff will also benefit from participation. This field course is suitable for multi-disciplinary team attendance.
Prerequisites and linking courses
While there are no formal pre-requesites for this course, it is assumed that participants have knowledge of the fundamental processes and terminology of sedimentology.
To build on the lessons learned on N009, we recommend D483 (Geological Seismic Interpretation of Deepwater Systems: Depositional Environments, Reservoir Architecture and Stratigraphy (Distance Learning)) and N033 (Characterisation, Modelling, Simulation and Development Planning in Deepwater Clastic Reservoirs (Tabernas, Spain)), among others.
The physical demands for this class are LOW according to the Nautilus Training Alliance field course grading system. All outcrops are coastal and there will be multiple walks of up to 2 km (1 mile) most days, all at around sea level with no ascent or descent exceeding 50 m (160 feet). The longest walk on the class is approximately 5 km (3 miles). Transport will be by coach on paved roads. There will be a three-hour boat trip (weather dependent) to view key cliff exposures.
Click on a name to learn more about the instructor
Martin Evans
Martin Evans
Background
Martin Evans has 28 years of E&P industry experience. After graduating Martin spent 1985-1997 with Amoco, BP Exploration and Maersk Oil, initially as a sedimentologist and later as an exploration geologist. During this period he worked and lived in Europe, South America, and Indonesia.
In 1997 Martin joined Anadarko in London, where he worked on Algeria, firstly in exploration and later in field development; this was an exciting time to be working in Algeria, with Anadarko discovering and developing several giant oil fields in the Ghadames basin. In 2002 he moved to Anadarko’s headquarters in The Woodlands, Texas, where he worked in the Basin Studies Group looking at xploration opportunities worldwide. Following this assignment he led global deepwater exploration, focusing Anadarko’s’ exploration efforts on deepwater West Africa and East Africa. Highlights include oil discoveries in Ghana and gas discoveries in Mozambique. From 2007-2009 Martin was Anadarko’s Chief Geologist, and his current role is Director of International New Ventures.
Martin has led field-based classes on the Tertiary basins of the external fold-and-thrust belt of the French Alps, the Jurassic of the Yorkshire coast, and the Wessex basin, U.K. Together with Dr. Andy Pulham he teaches play fairway analysis classes for Anadarko. Martin also lectures and teaches a short course in Global Shale Resources at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he is an Associate Professor.
Affiliations and Accreditation
PhD University College of Swansea, Wales - Geology
BSc University College of Wales, Aberystwyth - Geology
Courses Taught
N009: Sedimentology, Stratigraphy and Reservoir Geology of Deepwater Clastic Systems (County Clare, Ireland)
Peter Haughton
Peter Haughton
Background
Peter is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin (1981). After a year working in mineral exploration in the Irish Midlands. Subsequently he was appointed as a Britoil Research Fellow (1985-1988) and then a Royal Society of Edinburgh/BP Research Fellow (1988-1991), both at the University of Glasgow. From 1991 to 1996, he worked as a consultant in the oil industry, before returning to Dublin in 1996 to take up a lectureship at UCD. Peter was Editor-in-Chief of the journal Sedimentology from 2002-2006.
Affiliations and Accreditation
PhD University of Glasgow
Courses Taught
N009: Sedimentology, Stratigraphy and Reservoir Geology of Deepwater Clastic Systems (County Clare, Ireland)
Andy Pulham
Andy Pulham
Background
Dr. Andy Pulham has 37 years of industrial and academic experience. After graduating Andy spent 12 years with BP Exploration as a Petroleum Sedimentologist and for BP worked in NW Europe, North America and South America. Highlights in Andy’s industrial career have been regional studies in the Jurassic of the North Sea and the Cenozoic of the deepwater Gulf of Mexico and the appraisal of the Cusiana Field in Colombia.
From 1995-2001 Andy was Principal Investigator for Reservoir Geology at the Energy and Minerals Applied Research Center in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado. While in Colorado, Andy conducted research into the production characteristics of marginal marine siliciclastic oil and gas reservoirs and alluvial architecture in the Big Horn Basin of Wyoming. Subsurface projects were drawn from the Americas, Europe and Papua New Guinea.
In 2001 Andy gained an appointment as the Canada Research Chair in Petroleum Geosciences in the Department of Earth Sciences, Memorial University of Newfoundland and taught undergraduate and graduate petroleum geology and sedimentology and advised graduate students in subsurface reservoir, seismic stratigraphy and outcrop sedimentology projects.
Andy left academia in 2003 and joined Nautilus USA as VP of Geoscience and acted as the senior technical liaison and technical manager for the Geoscience Training Alliance in North America; an alliance at the time of 15 oil and gas companies.
Since early 2005 Andy has been constructing his own consulting and training company and alliances. Andy’s primary interests are clastic sedimentology and stratigraphy. He has consulted in South America, USA, Europe and Africa. Andy’s portfolio of geoscience training classes now number eleven schools and include deepwater clastics, marginal marine and deltas, play fairway analysis and exploration prospecting and petroleum systems.
Affiliations and Accreditation
PhD University College of Wales, Swansea - Geology
BSc University of Liverpool, England - Physical Geography and Geology
AAPG - Member
SEPM - Member
IAS - Member
RMAG - Member
Courses Taught
N087: Play Fairway Analysis & Exploration Prospecting
N009: Sedimentology, Stratigraphy & Reservoir Geology of Deepwater Clastic Systems (County Clare, Ireland)
N011: High Resolution Sequence Stratigraphy: Reservoir Applications (Utah, USA)
N042: Reservoir Sedimentology & Stratigraphy of Coastal and Shelfal Successions: Deltas, Shorelines and Origins of Isolated Sandstones (NW Colorado, USA)
N115: High Resolution Sequence Stratigraphy: Application to Deltaic Systems and Reservoirs (County Clare Ireland)
Dates for this Course
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County Clare
- Date:
- 9 - 13 Jun. 2021
- Event Code:
- N009a21JO
- Fee:
- GBP £6,560 (Exclusive of tax)
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“ This is a really great course balancing geology and enjoying your surroundings. The outcrop examples linking to geological models are outstanding. The increase in data with well information makes this a must for people working in deepwater environments.”
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