Courses

This hands-on 5-day course utilizes lectures and practical exercises to introduce key concepts of an effective petroleum system with emphasis on  global tectonics and how basins are formed, filled and deformed, and on learning key geologic prospecting tools for exploration. The Atlantic Margin basin is used as an example to discuss the elements of the petroleum system. Clastic rocks are emphasized (especially turbidites) but carbonate rocks and evaporite formation is also reviewed.

Discussions include introduction of key aspects of source rock, migration, overburden rock, reservoir characteristics including porosity, permeability and architecture,  seal rock characteristics, structural and stratigraphic traps, timing and preservation elements.

Prospecting Tools covered in this course include petrophysics for exploration geoscientists , bio- and sequence stratigraphic applications, essential log correlation workflow and log annotation methods, data contouring and mapping, applications of multiple working hypotheses, and utilization of direct hydrocarbon indicators to exploration. Students correlate various logs that illustrate faulted sections and straitigraphic variation, and create contour maps and learn to properly present faults in map view.