Bounding Surfaces in a Barchan Dune: Annual Cycles of Deposition? Seasonality or Erosion by Superimposed Bedforms?

A barchan dune near Tarfaya in Morocco has been surveyed using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) revealing packages of dipping strata within the dune that are truncated by bounding surfaces. The bounding surfaces dip in the downwind direction, truncate sets of cross-stratification, and are themselves downlapped by dipping strata. Models of aeolian strata suggest that the bounding surfaces could be reactivation surfaces, an erosion surface formed when a dune is reshaped by a change in wind. Alternatively, they could be superposition surfaces formed by smaller bedforms migration over the dune surface. These two hypotheses are tested using a combination of field and satellite observations. The average annual migration rate for the barchan dune derived from satellite images, gives an annual migration rate of 21.4 m·yr−1. The number of reactivation surfaces imaged within the dune by GPR appears to scale with the annual migrating rate and dune turnover time suggesting that at this location, annual cycles in the wind regime are a potential control on dune stratigraphy with reactivation surfaces generated by changes in the wind direction, including wind reversals in the winter months. Alternatively, it is hypothesized that erosion in the lee of small superimposed bedforms as they pass the dune crest and approach the brink at the top of the slipface will create superposition surfaces. The migration rate of superimposed bedforms with a wavelength of 20 m has been measured at 2 m·day−1. This suggests that small superimposed bedforms will arrive at the dune crest approximately every 10 days. Thus, bounding surface created by erosion in the lee of superimposed dunes will be very common. Given that the turnover time of the barchan dune is estimated at 4.3 years, the number of superposition surfaces produced by the faster bedforms could be more than 100. The number of bounding surface imaged by a GPR profile along the length of the dune appears to support the wind-driven reactivation hypothesis. However, a GPR profile across the dune images many small trough sets, instead of a single slipface, suggesting that superimposed dunes play an important role in the stratigraphy of a relatively simple barchan dune.

Three-dimensional geosteering coherence attributes for deep-formation discontinuity detection

Deep-formation oil/gas exploration is a key objective in the geophysical field, and structural and stratigraphic discontinuities, such as faults and channels, usually contribute to the construction of traps and reservoirs. Coherence has been used successfully to identify these abnormal features in seismic amplitude volumes. However, the current coherence algorithms seldom involve the geologic concept. We propose geosteering coherence attributes by implementing the coherence calculation perpendicular to the direction of the structural trend in a 3D curved plane. We estimate a group of time lags between the original analysis trace and each original neighboring trace along a certain spatial direction by using dip scanning. For each spatial direction, we subsequently construct two new model traces by weighting phase traces derived from the complex seismic traces, in which time lags are eliminated. We then use the new model traces to compute the crosscorrelation coefficients for each spatial direction. We finally obtain the 3D geosteering coherence attributes by taking the minimum values among the modulus of the crosscorrelation coefficients along different spatial directions to approximately characterize the coherence perpendicular to the structural trend in a 3D curved plane. An example of the 3D physical modeling involving fracture groups and faults embedded in the deep formation is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the 3D geosteering coherence attributes. The applications on two real 3D seismic data sets of sand reservoirs from western deep formation illustrate that our method can alleviate the influence of dipping strata and can highlight subtle structures. Compared to the conventional coherence method, our method can highlight subtle geologic structures more and better, suggesting that it may be serve as a future tool for detecting the distribution of geologic abnormalities in deep exploration.

Improved eigenvalue-based coherence algorithm with dip scanning

Detection and identification of subsurface anomalous structures are key objectives in seismic exploration. The coherence technique has been successfully used to identify geologic abnormalities and discontinuities, such as faults and unconformities. Based on the classic third eigenvalue-based coherence ([Formula: see text]) algorithm, we make several improvements and develop a new method to construct covariance matrix using the original and Hilbert transformed seismic traces. This new covariance matrix more readily converges to the main effective signal energy on the largest eigenvalue by decreasing all other eigenvalues. Compared with the conventional coherence algorithms, our algorithm has higher resolution and better noise immunity ability. Next, we incorporate this new eigenvalue-based algorithm with time-lag dip scanning to relieve the dip effect and highlight the discontinuities. Application on 2D synthetic data demonstrates that our coherence algorithm favorably alleviates the low-valued artifacts caused by linear and curved dipping strata and clearly reveals the discontinuities. The coherence results of 3D real field data also commendably suppress noise, eliminate the influence of large dipping strata, and highlight small hidden faults. With the advantages of higher resolution and robustness to random noise, our strategy successfully achieves the goal of detecting the distribution of discontinuities.

The Statfjord Field, Blocks 33/9, 33/12 Norwegian sector, Blocks 211/24, 211/25 UK sector, Northern North Sea

The Statfjord Field, the largest oil field in the Northern North Sea, straddles the Norway/UK boundary and is located on the southwestern part of the Tampen Spur within the East Shetland Basin. The accumulation is trapped in a 6-8° W-NW dipping rotated fault block comprised of Jurassic-Triassic strata sealed by Middle to Upper Jurassic and Cretaceous shalesReserves are located in three separate reservoirs: Middle Jurassic deltaic sediments of the Brent Group, Lower Jurassic marine-shelf sandstones and siltstones of the Dunlin Group; and Upper Triassic-lowermost Jurassic fluviatile sediments of the Statfjord Formation. The majority of reserves are contained within the Brent Group; and Statfjord Formation sediments which exhibit good to excellent reservoir properties with porosities ranging from 20-30% permeabilities ranging up to several darcies, and an average net-to-gross of 60-75%. The sandstones and siltstones of the Dunlin Group have poorer reservoir properties where the best reservoir unit exhibits an average porosity of 22%, an average permeability 300 raD and net-to-gross of 45%Structurally, the field is subdivided into a main field area characterized by relatively undeformed W-NW dipping strata, and a heavily deformed east flank area characterized by several phases of 'eastward' gravitational collapseProduction from the field commenced in 1979 and as of January 2000, 176 wells have been drilled. The oil is undersaturated and no natural gas-cap is present. The drainage strategy has been to develop the Brent and Dunlin Group reservoir with pressure maintenance using water injection and the Statfjord Formation reservoir by miscible gas flood. However, a strategy to improve recovery by implementing water alternating gas (WAG) methods is gradually being implemented for both the Brent and Statfjord reservoirs. Current estimates indicate that by 2015 a total of 666 x 106Sm3 (4192 MMBBL) of oil will be recovered and 75 GSm3 (2.66 TCF) gas will be exported from the field