Geology & Geophysics Archives

Geology & Geophysics

The tricky part of resource assessments within gas-dominated basins or petroleum systems

Lukasz Krawczynski, Top Down Petroleum Systems Analysis and Martin Neumaier, ArianeLogiX

June 15, 2026

When conducting prospect resource assessments within gas-dominated basins, there is a low likelihood of oil or mixed-phase accumulations being filled to spill. If this is not properly considered, prospect resource…

The very first core cut in the UK North Sea

Henk Kombrink

June 8, 2026

It is boxing day 1964, a day most people in the countries around the North Sea don’t think about spending a day at sea. Yet, the crew of the Global…

What are we risking and why is it important?

Jan de Jager

May 21, 2026

Risk is about the chance of finding producible hydrocarbons; uncertainty is about the volume of hydrocarbons that may be found in the case of success. The geological Probability of Success…

Your fault stability analysis might be lying to you

Subsurface Alliance

May 12, 2026

The Mohr space represents stress states and, combined with fault strength criteria, is used to assess fault stability. It is simple, elegant, and widely accepted. It is also, when applied…

Tectonics or soft-sediment deformation?

Molly Turko, Devon Energy

May 11, 2026

Soft-sediment deformation (SSD) refers to structures that form during or shortly after deposition, while sediments remain unlithified, water-saturated, and mechanically weak. These features develop prior to significant compaction and cementation,…

You may not be thinking about politics…

Juan Cottier, MMbbls Subsurface Consulting

April 30, 2026

I lived here for many years. Worked hard. Played harder. Drink and jazz and mountains and surfing and brass-banding and drink. Foundational geoscience and drilling. I made the best friends…

Not too many, not too few

Henk Kombrink and Marcos Asensio

April 10, 2026

The Shewashan oil field is located in one of the world’s most famous petroleum provinces – the Zagros fold and thrust belt – not far from the major Kirkuk field.…

Greenland’s unconformity

Ian Sharp, Equinor and Steven Andrews, Leeds University

April 6, 2026

This fantastic example of an unconformity, where steeply dipping Devonian strata meet Permian sediments, is exposed on the north side of Wegener Halvø in East Greenland (71° 44 ‘ north).…

How to generate an oil accumulation in a gas-prone petroleum system?

Lukasz Krawczynski, Top Down Petroleum Systems Analysis and Martin Neumaier, ArianeLogiX

March 30, 2026

Australia’s NW Shelf is characterised by a gas-dominated petroleum system, where Middle Jurassic deltaic coals of the Plover Formation make up the main source rocks. That is why oil occurrences…

Recognising structural inversion

Molly Turko, Devon Energy

March 11, 2026

In structural geology, inversion describes a situation where a fault or structure is reactivated with the opposite sense of movement from its original displacement. The most common type is positive…

When the lithium cycle bites back

István Nagy-Korodi, Consulting Geologist

March 2, 2026

Commodity cycles rarely announce their turning points. They emerge quietly, through inventory data, project pipelines, and subtle shifts in physical markets – long before consensus catches up. The lithium price…

Geomechanical models – not a luxury but a risk management tool

Subsurface Alliance

February 26, 2026

After over a hundred years of research and development, geomechanics modeling is not just a nice-to-have accessory in a drilling campaign, but it is one of the main pillars to…

The global energy sector from a subsurface perspective