Mass-transport Deposits in Deepwater Settings


Book Description

Historically, submarine-mass failures or mass-transport deposits have been a focus of increasingly intense investigation by academic institutions particularly during the last decade, though they received much less attention by geoscientists in the energy industry. With recent interest in expanding petroleum exploration and production into deeper water-depths globally and more widespread availability of high-quality data sets, mass-transport deposits are now recognized as a major component of most deep-water settings. This recognition has lead to the realization that many aspects of these deposits are still unknown or poorly understood. This volume contains twenty-three papers that address a number of topics critical to further understanding mass-transport deposits. These topics include general overviews of these deposits, depositional settings on the seafloor and in the near-subsurface interval, geohazard concerns, descriptive outcrops, integrated outcrop and seismic data/seismic forward modeling, petroleum reservoirs, and case studies on several associated topics. This volume will appeal to a broad cross section of geoscientists and geotechnical engineers, who are interested in this rapidly expanding field. The selection of papers in this volume reflects a growing trend towards a more diverse blend of disciplines and topics, covered in the study of mass-transport deposits.




Deep-Water Processes and Facies Models: Implications for Sandstone Petroleum Reservoirs


Book Description

This rock-based book is an attempt to link deep-water process sedimentology with sandstone petroleum reservoirs. In presenting a consistent process interpretation, the author has relied on his description and interpretation of core and outcrop (1:20 to 1:50 scale) from 35 case studies (which include 32 petroleum reservoirs), totaling more than 30,000 feet (9,145 m), carried out during the past 30 years (1974-2004). This book should serve as an important source of information for students on history, methodology, first principles, advanced concepts, controversies, and practical applications on deep-water sedimentology and petroleum geology.* Discusses the link between deep-water process sedimentology and petroleum geology * Addresses criteria for recognizing deposits of gravity-driven, thermohaline-driven, wind-driven, and tide-driven processes in deep-water environments* Provides head-on approach to resolve controversial process-related problems




Deepwater Sedimentary Systems


Book Description

Deepwater Sedimentary Systems: Science, Discovery and Applications helps readers identify, understand and interpret deepwater sedimentary systems at various scales – both onshore and offshore. This book describes the best practices in the integration of geology, geophysics, engineering, technology and economics used to inform smart business decisions in these diverse environments. It draws on technical results gained from deepwater exploration and production drilling campaigns and global field analog studies. With the multi-decadal resilience of deepwater exploration and production and the nature of its inherent uncertainty, this book serves as the essential reference for companies, consultancies, universities, governments and deepwater practitioners around the world seeking to understand deepwater systems and how to explore for and produce resources in these frontier environments. From an academic perspective, readers will use this book as the primer for understanding the processes, deposits and sedimentary environments in deep water – from deep oceans to deep lakes. This book provides conceptual approaches and state-of-the-art information on deepwater systems, as well as scenarios for the next 100 years of human-led exploration and development in deepwater, offshore environments. The students taught this material in today's classrooms will become the leaders of tomorrow in Earth's deepwater frontier. This book provides a broad foundation in deepwater sedimentary systems. What may take an individual dozens of academic and professional courses to achieve an understanding in these systems is provided here in one book. - Presents a holistic view of how subsurface and engineering processes work together in the energy industry, bringing together contributions from the various technical and engineering disciplines - Provides diverse perspectives from a global authorship to create an accurate picture of the process of deepwater exploration and production around the world - Helps readers understand how to interpret deepwater systems at various scales to inform smart business decisions, with a significant portion of the workflows derived from the upstream energy industry




Deep-water Processes and Facies Models


Book Description

This rock-based book is an attempt to link deep-water process sedimentology with sandstone petroleum reservoirs. In presenting a consistent process interpretation, the author has relied on his description and interpretation of core and outcrop (1: 20 to 1: 50 scale) from 35 case studies (which include 32 petroleum reservoirs), totaling more than 30,000 feet (9,145 m), carried out during the past 30 years (1974-2004). This book should serve as an important source of information for students on history, methodology, first principles, advanced concepts, controversies, and practical applications on deep-water sedimentology and petroleum geology * Discusses the link between deep-water process sedimentology and petroleum geology * Addresses criteria for recognizing deposits of gravity-driven, thermohaline-driven, wind-driven, and tide-driven processes in deep-water environments* Provides head-on approach to resolve controversial process-related problems




New Perspectives on Deep-water Sandstones


Book Description

This handbook is vital for understanding the origin of deep-water sandstones, emphasizing sandy-mass transport deposits (SMTDs) and bottom-current reworked sands (BCRSs) in petroleum reservoirs. This cutting-edge perspective, a pragmatic alternative to the conventional turbidite concepts, is crucial because the turbidite paradigm is built on a dubious foundation without empirical data on sandy turbidity currents in modern oceans. In the absence of evidence for sandy turbidity currents in natural environments, elegant theoretical models and experimental observations of turbidity currents are irrelevant substitutes for explaining the origin of sandy deposits as "turbidites." In documenting modern and ancient SMTDs (sandy slides, sandy slumps, and sandy debrites) and BCRSs (deposits of thermohaline [contour] currents, wind-driven currents, and tidal currents), the author describes and interprets core and outcrop (1:20 to 1:50 scale) from 35 case studies worldwide (which include 32 petroleum reservoirs), totaling more than 10,000 m in cumulative thickness, carried out during the past 36 years (1974-2010). The book dispels myths about the importance of sea level lowstand and provides much-needed clarity on the triggering of sediment failures by earthquakes, meteorite impacts, tsunamis, and cyclones with implications for the distribution of deep-water sandstone petroleum reservoirs. Promotes pragmatic interpretation of deep-water sands using alternative possibilities Validates the economic importance of SMTDs and BCRS in deep-water exploration and production Rich in empirical data and timely new perspectives




Mass Transport, Gravity Flows, and Bottom Currents


Book Description

Mass Transport, Gravity Flows, and Bottom Currents: Downslope and Alongslope Processes and Deposits focuses solely on important downslope and alongslope processes. The book provides clear definitions and characteristics based on soil mechanics, fluid mechanics and sediment concentration by volume. It addresses Slides, Slumps, and Debris Flows, Grain Flows, Liquefied/Fluidized Flows, and Turbidity Currents, Density plumes, Hyperpycnal Flows, the Triggering Mechanisms of Downslope Processes, Bottom Currents, and Soft-Sediment Deformation Structures. The mechanics of each process are described in detail and used to provide empirically-driven categories to help recognize these deposits it the rock record. Case studies clearly illustrate of the problems inherent in recognizing these processes in the rock record, and potential solutions are provided alongside future avenues of research. An appendix also provides step-by-step guidance in describing and interpreting sediments. - Comprehensively addresses modern downslope and alongslope processes, including definitions and mechanisms - Provides key criteria for the recognition of depositional facies in the rock record - Includes case studies to illustrate each downslope and alongslope process - Identifies key problems and potential solutions for future research - Uses pragmatic, empirical, data-driven interpretations to revise conventional facies models




Contourites


Book Description

Contourites are sediments deposited or substantially reworked by bottom currents. The study of contourites is crucial for several fields of fundamental and applied research: paleoclimatology and paleo-oceanography, since these fairly continuous and relatively high-resolution sediments hold the key for priceless information on the variability in circulation patter, current velocity, oceanographic history and basin interconnectivity; hydrocarbon exploration, since accumulation of source rocks may be favored by weak bottom currents, whereas "clean" deep-sea sands may be formed by robust flows; and slope stability, since low-permeability fine-grained contourites facilitate the formation of overpressurized gliding planes when fresh contourites with a high pore-water content becomes rapidly loaded, or when their rigid biosiliceous microfabric collapses due to diagenetic conditions. Despite its significance, this group of sediments is poorly known by the majority of non-specialists. Notwithstanding the growing interest and the intensified research in contourites, a textbook that might also serve as a reference book on contourites was missing until now. This book addresses all aspects of the knowledge in the field of contourites and provides an authoritative and comprehensive coverage of the subject. It also can serve as a standard reference work for non-specialists, and in particular postgraduate students, university teachers and lecturers, researchers and professionals who are seeking an authoritative source of information about contourites. Reviews both theoretical topics and case histories Provides practical advice on multidisciplinary research techniques Provides also nonspecialist users with an intuitively-accessible, cross-referenced, and comprehensive coverage of the knowledge in the field Provides a helpful tool for research in the preparation of classroom lectures




Deep-water Contourite Systems


Book Description




Atlas of Deep-Water Outcrops


Book Description

Hardcover plus CD




Deep Marine Systems


Book Description

Deep-water (below wave base) processes, although generally hidden from view, shape the sedimentary record of more than 65% of the Earth’s surface, including large parts of ancient mountain belts. This book aims to inform advanced-level undergraduate and postgraduate students, and professional Earth scientists with interests in physical oceanography and hydrocarbon exploration and production, about many of the important physical aspects of deep-water (mainly deep-marine) systems. The authors consider transport and deposition in the deep sea, trace-fossil assemblages, and facies stacking patterns as an archive of the underlying controls on deposit architecture (e.g., seismicity, climate change, autocyclicity). Topics include modern and ancient deep-water sedimentary environments, tectonic settings, and how basinal and extra-basinal processes generate the typical characteristics of basin slopes, submarine canyons, contourite mounds and drifts, submarine fans, basin floors and abyssal plains.