Course summary and outline
This course is designed to develop skills in characterising carbonate rocks and identifying their depositional setting. The course also offers insights into the environmental, biological, physical, chemical and climatic controls on the carbonate factory, which provide greater understanding and prediction of the geometry and lateral heterogeneity of carbonate reservoirs in the subsurface. Facies analysis and sequence stratigraphy methods and applications will be covered, providing all the tools needed for reconstructing the sedimentological carbonate architecture at the field scale.
The workshop is organised into two sessions:
Part A: The carbonate system - "Carbonates are born not made"
• The mineralogy of carbonates
• The composition of carbonate rocks: skeletal vs non-skeletal allochems
• Classification of carbonate rocks
• The controls on carbonate production
• The carbonate factory - the impact of carbonate producers on the carbonate accumulation geometry
• The types of the carbonate accumulations
• Applied carbonate facies analysis
• Typical carbonate facies observed in core and thin-sections
• The key to identifying carbonate depositional environments
Part B: Sequence stratigraphy applied to carbonate reservoirs
• Introduction to the basic concepts of sequence stratigraphy
• Carbonate record and sea level
• Method to establish a sequence stratigraphic framework
• Prediction of the sedimentological heterogeneity and interpretation of the sedimentological reservoir architecture
Note: each section will be accompanied by example case studies and exercises.
Course Information
Who Should Attend?
The course is targeted at petroleum geologists, geoscientists, petrophysicists and engineers involved in exploration and production of carbonate plays. Previous knowledge on carbonate sedimentology is not necessarily required.
Instructor
Aurélie Bonin.- Aurélie is a senior carbonate reservoir geologist based in Oman with an interest in sedimentology and petrography. She has led several multiwell sedimentological and reservoir quality evaluation studies in the Middle East, predominantly in the Arab Gulf area. Aurélie has experience in a wide range of Mesozoic carbonate records deposited in intertidal to deepwater domains, and has research, industrial and teaching experience.
If you would like more information on this, or any other courses, please e-mail training@badley-ashton.co.uk or call +44 (0) 1507 588353.
Case Studies
The following case studies may be of interest:- Sedimentology and depositional setting of the Asl and Hawara Members, October Field, Egypt
- High-frequency cyclicity in the Late Jurassic Arab Formation in a giant gas field, United Arab Emirates?
- New Insight on the Depositional Environment and Facies Atlas of Aptian in a Super Giant Carbonate Field in the Middle East
Articles
The following articles may be of interest:
Publications
The following publications may be of interest:
- Palaeogeographic Reconstruction of a Tide-Dominated Oolite Shoal Complex in the Lower Arab Formation, Onshore UAE
- Enhancing the Sedimentological Understanding within the Arab Formation (Upper Jurassic), Abu Dhabi - Constraining the Future Reservoir Model Build
- Field-Scale Reservoir Quality Variations and Predictability in Uncored Intervals within the Arab Formation, offshore Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates)
- New Insights on the Mauddud Formation (Upper Albian): Characterisation of Sedimentology, Diagenesis and Reservoir Quality
- Full-resolution 3D radar stratigraphy of complex oolitic sedimentary architecture: Miami Limestone, Florida, USA