Geology & Geophysics

The 1-meter sand that made the decisive call

“Multiple depositional systems can be responsible for creating the same sedimentary facies,” explains deepwater sedimentologist Wouter de Weger from the Earth Science Institute in Granada, Spain. “For that reason, when looking at an outcrop with a group of specialists, who…

Up or down – in which direction did the sand go?

At the recent EAGE Annual in Aberdeen, I briefly met geologist Jan Erik Rudjord. He convinced me to see his talk on what he calls sinkites: Sands that have apparently sunk into the underlying strata. It was a new topic…

What else is hiding in your reservoir brine?

Lithium changed the way many people look at produced water. It forced us to admit that reservoir brines are not simply waste streams. They are geological fluids that have spent millions of years interacting with rocks. Once that idea is…

The sediment waves of Sangomar

I always try to pen down the most important topics dis­cussed during conversations. And so it happened that I wrote down a few snippets fol­lowing a conversation with a geologist I spoke to in London earlier this year. She told me…

Know your faulted folds

The concept of “mechanical stratigraphy” is a staple in structural geology, yet we often confine our focus to the small scale, analyzing how individual beds or fractures respond to stress. By scaling up this perspective, we can leverage stratigraphy as…

A conversation about contourites

“Even in the chaos, there is an order,” says Sara Morgado Rodrigues when we have a call whilst she is working on a project in Buenos Aires, at one of YPF’s offices. Sara is a postdoctoral researcher at the Andalusian…

Argentina’s pioneers and the secret of Cacheuta

In April 1886, Carlos Fader and the Compañía Mendocina de Petróleo chose a remote spot in Cacheuta, near Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the whole of the Andes, to drill Argentina’s first commercial oil well. Armed with rudimentary machinery, they…

Subsurface Evangelising – Preaching to the Choir

The Hanged Man card from the Tarot’s Major Arcana. Illustration: GiftedMG via Pixabay. I was a board member of a small oil company, and we were sent on public relations training. My assessment included the following: “Under no circumstance should…

Oil fault traps in California’s San Joaquin Basin

The San Joaquin Basin (SJB) is one of the world’s most prolific petroleum provinces and contains numerous oil accumulations that owe much of their trapping mechanism to faults. Unlike many light-oil and gas-prone basins where faults commonly degrade trap integrity,…

Field trips and software don’t mix very well – or do they?

“It was a new thing to us,” says Lilly Walker from RFD when we meet on what is her Wednesday afternoon in Perth, Australia. Lilly is a geologist and joined RFD’s Australia team a little more than a year ago.…