Petroleum Geology

What you'll learn

• Place petroleum accumulations on the geologic time scale, classify sedimentary basins by tectonic setting, and estimate compaction and decompacted thickness from a porosity-depth curve.
• Relate sediment transport and settling to grain size, and recognize the main continental, coastal, shelf and deep-water depositional environments from their rocks and facies.
• Describe how grain size, sorting, packing, compaction and cementation control sandstone porosity and permeability, and calculate net-to-gross, net porosity and hydrocarbon pore volume from layer data.
• Explain how carbonate platforms, reefs and evaporites form, describe carbonate pore types and diagenesis, and estimate the porosity created by dolomitization.
• Classify kerogen types, interpret total organic carbon, Rock-Eval and vitrinite reflectance data, and calculate a Lopatin time-temperature index to judge source rock maturity.
• Explain primary and secondary migration, calculate the hydrocarbon column a seal can hold from capillary entry pressure, and interpret fluid contacts and pressure gradients.
• Describe anticlines, fault traps and salt-related traps, measure closure and spill point on structure maps, and estimate gross rock volume from contour areas.
• Recognize pinch-out, channel, reef, unconformity and combination traps, and relate sand body geometry to well intersection and reservoir connectivity.
• Correlate wells with gamma ray, resistivity, density and neutron logs, construct structure and isopach maps, and grid thickness data by inverse-distance weighting.
• Interpret seismic reflections, polarity, resolution and amplitude anomalies, tie seismic to wells, and convert two-way time to depth with an estimate of depth uncertainty.
• Build a petroleum system events chart, compare the timing of trap formation with hydrocarbon generation, and assess the risk of each element in a prospect.
• Describe the tectonic history, major petroleum systems and plays of the Permian Basin and the Gulf of Mexico, and compare volumes in place for stacked tight-oil benches and deepwater sands.