Geology & Geophysics

Geophysics: A Simple Guide to Seismic Amplitudes and Detuning

Seismic amplitude changes may tell us something about reservoir lithology, porosity, and/or fluids. However, seismic tuning effects are potentially much larger than amplitude variations due to geological changes. Understanding this…

Little and Large

Seismic supply companies are helping operators face the downturn by providing cost-effective enhancements to existing product portfolios. With the oil price for this year staying at the low levels seen…

Vast Hydrocarbon Potential: Mexico’s Offshore Ronda Uno

An insight into some highlights of the offshore hydrocarbon potential available in almost virgin exploration territory. The Mexican Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos (CNH) announced its first ever licensing round (Ronda Uno) in…

Stories From Deep Time

How one man’s passion for the fossils of ‘an uninteresting rock’ has resulted in a unique collection. Steve Etches is a man with a passion – and a very crowded…

The Search for Oil in the South-Eastern Barents Sea

Broadband imaging improves the understanding of a prospective area on the Finnmark platform. For more than 40 years Russia and Norway were in dispute over a 175,000 km2 area in the…

Black & Blue

Using blue sky science data to aid in de-risking black gold exploration. For nearly 50 years the International Ocean Discovery Program has drilled, cored and measured the earth beneath the sea…

Towed Streamer EM for Success

See the ‘Big Picture’ and the ‘Details’. Using a towed streamer EM system makes it possible to use the same data to determine resistivity on a scale of a few…

The predictive power of palynology

In a major turnaround for a profession that fell out of favour in the 1980s, a number of palynology consultancies are growing rapidly and struggling to meet the demand for…

Looking down the wellbore

What is petrophysics? Spindletop was a PR disaster for the oil industry – not just because of the environmental damage, but also because it created a false impression that finding…

Folds and folding – Part I

Chevron folds on Ribbon Chert (deepwater radiolarian chert, part of the Franciscan accretionary complex), Oregon. Source: Dr Marli Miller/University of Oregon. Folds, faults and joints are the main types of…

Don’t wake up Mungibeddu!

‘Mungibeddu’ (‘the mountain’ in the Sicilian dialect) has impressive credentials. It is a candidate to join UNESCO‘s World Heritage list, and was designated as a ‘Decade Volcano’ by the International…

Source Rock Subcropping in the Baffin Bay

Seabed samples from the Baffin Bay document an active hydrocarbon system offshore northwest Greenland. The northwest Greenland shelf is a frontier petroleum province in the arctic Baffin Bay. Limited seismic…