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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
Houston Geological Society Bulletin
Abstract
Abstract: Granite to Grass Roots:
Understanding the Geologic History of Unconventional
Resource Basins from Bottom to Top
BP America
Houston, Texas
The competition for unconventional resources in North
America has resulted, in some cases, in the acquisition of
acreage prior to obtaining an understanding of subsurface technical
risks or identification of fairway boundaries and sweet
spots. Indeed, the term “resource play” implies to some that subsurface
risks are either minimized or irreducible. As well, the
term “unconventional gas” connotes that little is to be gained
from application of conventional principles
of basin evolution
and petroleum generation,
migration
, and entrapment. Under
these circumstances, the value of regional geologic understanding
of an entire basin prior to acreage capture can be overlooked and
the focus turned to completions technology and post-well analysis.
This lecture will discuss the importance of understanding a basin
from basement to surface – granite
to grass roots – in the search for
unconventional fairways. The lecture
will include a holistic integration of
data and interpretations from basin
modeling, petroleum migration
modeling, gas isotope data, pressure
history, seismic, and reservoir
quality. Linkages will be made from
microscopic scale observations to tectonic-scale processes.
Examples will be given from various North American basins that
illustrate how mega-scale features, such as basement architecture
and Precambrian rift history, have a first order and transcendent
effect on the evolution and occurrence of unconventional
resource fairways, including a strong influence on petroleum
generation and entrapment as well as changes in reservoir rock
during post-orogenic uplift.