The Grand Canyon of the Middle East
The outcrop photo shows what is commonly known as the Grand Canyon of the Middle East: Wadi Ghul and Wadi Nakr in the Jebel Shams Massif in northern Oman. From…
Geology & Geophysics
When your oil reservoir turns out to be a lithium deposit
As the global energy transition accelerates, the demand for critical raw materials (CRMs) is rising at an unprecedented pace. The list of elements essential for modern technologies – from lithium…
Hydrocarbon and seal properties are key
Most commonly, Petroleum Systems Analysis (PSA) studies tend to focus on source rock distribution, its quality, and the thermal regime of the basin to then model migration pathways and the…
Dead oil traces in a lonely pebble bed
Where most exploration activity on the UK Continental Shelf took place in the North Sea, and later along the Atlantic Margin west of the Shetland Islands (WOS), it is good…
Porosity in compressional stress regimes
Porosity prediction sits at the heart of basin models and prospect evaluation. It underpins our understanding of reservoir quality, pore pressure, and thermal history. Traditionally, porosity has been modelled as…
Sponge clasts in calciturbidites
At the recent IMAGE Conference in Houston, somebody told me that the Permian Basin in Texas is not only famous for its hydrocarbon resources, but also because the uplifted areas…
Pasties, piskies, pegmatites… and Pliny
Britain has strong, quiet, ancient communities on its further reaches: Norse Shetland, Gaelic and Doric Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, and Cornwall at the southwest tip. All connected by…
Decoding slip with tension gashes
Tenson gashes are fractures in rocks formed under extensional stress, often filled with minerals like quartz or calcite. These features are key kinematic indicators in structural geology, revealing fault slip…
“The day I cut an 88 ft core of top seal”
“LinkedIn seems to be the place to brag about your career successes,” says Luke Johnson from TRACS International in this video. But sometimes, it is things that went wrong that…
Submarine avalanches in a serendipitous find
In the depths of the North Sea lies one of the most spectacular records of turbidity currents: The Claymore Sandstone. During the Upper Jurassic, these rocks were born from a…
Bottom-up meets top-down
If there is one positive aspect to this day and age, it is the ability to form solid working relationships even when people are living at opposite ends of the…
Flame structures
Outcrops remind us of the risks of applying a layer-cake approach to correlating well data. Turbidite lobes pinching out, channels abruptly transitioning to floodplain deposits or carbonate platforms only developing…