| 2004 |
Thrust
Belt Fracture Systems |
Randy
Marrett and Steve Laubach recently
completed initial field work on thrust belt fracture systems
in mixed siliciclastic/carbonate rock systems.
Results
of the study are posted on the Members side under Case
Studies.
We
plan to conduct a FRAC field trip and Research Meeting in
this area in the near future, as it contains several features
of potential great interest for exploration, including an
example of superporosity due to fracturing.12/30/04 |
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Support
for Research on Evolution of Fracture Systems |
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Jackson School of Geosciences recently announced that the Geology
Foundation will support our research on fundamental
aspects of fracture pattern development. The title of the successful
initiative is Fracture Opening
Processes: Chemical/Mechanical Evolution of Fracture Systems.
Complete information is posted on the members site. 11/15/04 |
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Sub-Evaporite
Detachment Fractures Field Seminar |
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A
field seminar to view fracture systems developed
in sandstone beneath a regional evaporite detachment is in
the planning stages. We intend to conduct the field seminar
during the first quarter of 2005. Image to left shows one
of the outcrops we will visit.
Members
having an interest in participating in the seminar or in learning
more about this research should contact Steve Laubach
or Meghan Ward.12/01/04 |
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In
January, Sanjay Srinivasan and Julia Gale will visit Ecopetrol
in Bucaramanga, Colombia to review FRAC research and view
core as part of an ongoing cooperative research effort. To
the right, a view of Bucaramanga.
For
more information and a copy of the slides to be presented
see the Members site. 12/30/04 |
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In
January, Julia Gale and Steve Laubach will visit Devon
Canada in Calgary to review FRAC research and case
studies.
For
more information and a copy of the slides to be presented
see the Members site.12/30/04 |
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Field
work in Piceance
Julia
Gale recently returned from fracture mapping and
sample collection in the Piceance Basin. More information
about subsurface and outcrop studies in the Piceance is posted
on the members site. In November, Chris Wilson's
production, fracture quality, and economic impact study based
on Piceance data was nearing completion. 11/02/04 |
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Rob
Lander during the FRAC field trip in July
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In
October, Rob Lander presented a report on our
Basic Energy Sciences grant Predicting
fracture porosity evolution in sandstone at the
"Flow and Transport: Characterization and Modeling from
Pore to Reservoir Scales" Geoscience Research Program Symposium.
An independent review panel named Rob's presentation the outstanding
contribution from a University project. [ Abstract
PDF ] 10/27/04
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Geochemical
Modeling of Fracture Sealing
Lake,
Lander, Milliken, discussion leaders
Internal
Review Meeting — 2004
The
goal of this meeting is a no-holds-barred discussion of the
interplay between time-dependent fracture growth and time-dependent
fracture closure in porous rocks under diagenetic conditions.
09/15/04
See calendar notice for dates.
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Open,
bridged fracture |
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Barnett
Shale: Field trip II. Kitty Milliken and Juergen
Schieber, others. Scheduled for Sunday, November 28, 2004.
Members welcome.
Contact
Kitty Milliken
about field trip logistics and associated lectures and core
review. 09/01/04 |
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FRAC
Student Event & Picnic
November
13, 2004
The
annual student and Texas exs event and picnic will be held
Saturday, November 13, 2004. Members
welcome. Contact the student organizing committee for
more information: Meghan
Ward, Chris Wilson, Edgar Pinzon, or Hammed Adefashe.
08/15/04 |
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Fracture
Research Meeting & Field Trips |
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Part
of the FRAC field party on the outcrop near Split Mountain,
Utah. The 2004 FRAC field trip was held July
17 and 18.
More
pictures from the field trip are posted on the Members site.
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The
FRAC Field trip and Research Meeting
in Utah is underway: July 17 through 20th.
See
you on the outcrop. See the Members side for more information.07/16/04 |
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July
FRAC Research Meeting is in the final stages
of preparation. See Meeting Information Link for hotel instructions
and field trip plans.
Meeting
dates are July 19-20. The meeting will include a review of
research progress, case studies and a field trip on July 17
& 18th.07/04/04 |
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July
Meeting Update
Information
about the July field trip and Research Meeting is posted under
Meetings on the Members side of this site.
Please
contact Steve
Laubach or Julia
Gale with questions.06/02/04 |
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Fracture
Opening Histories
Linda
Bonnell, Jon Olson, Rob Lander, and Steve Laubach are in Denver
5/24-5/26 sampling core from the Piceance and Unita
basins. Also part of the study is the core shown
here: Shell Brotherston 1-B4-11 core, Uinta Basin, from the
BEG
Midland core facility.
05/19/04 |
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Marrett
to Teach Faults School
FRAC
PI Randy Marrett is set to travel to Brazil
next week (May 04) to teach a course on faults at the Federal
University on the northeastern coast of Brazil. Randy will
also participate in a field trip during his visit, and meet
with representatives of Petrobras.
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More
Marrett field news: Watch a video (filmed and produced by
Violeta
Ivanova) of Randy's field trip to the Sierra
Madre Oriental last fall:
"The
Measure of the Sierra Madre"
A
field trip to the Central Andes, associated with the Fall
2004 Tectonics course, is planned for Winter break this year.
05/14/04 |
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Marrett
in Andes, 2003
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One
of the Barnett Shale exposures sampled. |
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Barnett
Shale
In
May, Kitty Milliken led a sampling trip to Barnett Shale outcrops
along the northern edge of the Llano Uplift.
Kitty's
Ph.D. student Petro Papazis has been sampling
Barnett Shale core for his dissertation research. More info
on the private side of the site. 05/10/04 |
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Invitations
to the July Research Meeting and information about meeting
and field trip logistics was sent to Members on April 23.
More
information is posted under Meetings on the
Members site.
Contact
Steve
Laubach or Julia
Gale if you have questions.05/05/04 |
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Controversial
FRAC Views on Stress and Fractures in EPSL
Volume
222, Issue 1 ,
Pages 1-331 (15 May 2004)
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Quartz
bridge in otherwise open fracture, Wyoming, depth 6 km.
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FRAC's
iconoclastic views on what governs the orientation of open
fractures will soon be published:
Are
open fractures necessarily aligned with maximum horizontal
stress?,
Earth & Planetary Science Letters, v. 222, no. 1,
191-195, Stephen E. Laubach, Jon E. Olson and Julia F.
W. Gale.
Online
at Elsevier on 12 April 2004. Link to EPSL
web site. 05/01/04 |
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Kitty
Milliken Elected Editor of Journal of Sedimentary Research |
| FRAC
Associate and Department of Geological Sciences Senior
Research Scientist Kitty Milliken was
recently named editor of the prestigious Journal
of Sedimentary Research. Congratulations
Kitty!
For
some of Kitty's recent FRAC-related research, see:
Milliken, K., Reed, R., and Laubach, S., in press, Quantifying
compaction and cementation within deformation bands
in porous sandstones: AAPG Memoir. 04/1/04
04/28/04
Photo: Kitty at FRAC
meeting, Jackson Hole, WY, July 2003
Click
here for the SEPM link. |
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Structural
Diagenesis: Astrid Makowitz Dissertation Defense
Congratulations
to FRAC Researcher Astrid Makowitz on the successful defense
of her Ph.D.
Dissertation:The
genetic association between brittle
deformation and quartz cementation: Examples
from burial compaction and cataclasis.
Dr. Makowitz will be leaving shortly for a job at BP
in Houston.
Results
of Astrid's research can be found on the AAPG web site [
Abstract ] or in more complete form on
the Member side of this web site. 04/22/04 |
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FRAC
Associates Win Best Student Presentation Awards at AAPG |
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Julymar
Morantes, an alumnus of the UT Department of Geological Sciences
and associate of FRAC who currently works for PDVSA-Intevep
received the 1st
place Student Poster Session award at the 2004 AAPG Annual
Meeting for her poster: Mechanisms
of Porosity Reduction of the Upper Cretaceous Sandstones in
the Eastern Venezuela Basin: Carito Oil Field.
[
Abstract
].
Current
FRAC Graduate Research Assistant
Leonel Gomez was awarded 3rd
place in Student Paper (Oral) Presentation for his talk:
Predicting Macrofracture Spacing from
Small Rock Samples: Testing New Analytical Techniques Using
Microfracture Spacing.
[
Abstract
].
04/22/04 Presentations
can be found on the Members side of this site in the slides
and presentations archive. |
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FRAC
Researcher Speaks at SPE Luncheon |
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As
part of the 2003-2004 Society of Petroleum Engineers'
Distinguished Lecture Series, Senior Research Scientist
Stephen Laubach will present "Fractures
in Reservoirs: Prediction, Characterization, and
Incorporation in Fluid-Flow Simulation"
at the Austin Section SPE monthly luncheon on February
24, 2004, at Serranos at Symphony Square. [ Abstract
] 02/24/04
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Tulsa,
Oklahoma, Hosts FRAC Scientist |
Bureau
Research Scientist Associate Robert Reed
traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma, on February 24 and
gave two presentations:"Some
Uses of
SEM-Based Cathodoluminescence Imaging in Sandstone
Petrology” was presented to Dennis
Kerr's graduate sandstone petrology class at the
University of Tulsa and |
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Macrofractures, and Fracture-Cement
Relations in Sandstones: Examples from Oklahoma and Texas”
[ Abstract
] to the Tulsa Geological Society. 02/26/04
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Dr.
Linda Bonnell begins the last leg of her AAPG
Distinguished Lecture tour
for 2003–2004 in March. Linda holds
the positions of Scientific Advisor and President
with Geocosm
and is a Research Fellow at the John A. and Katherine
G. Jackson School of Geosciences at The University
of Texas at Austin. Linda will present two talks:
µ
"Sealed, Bridged
or Open - A New Theory of Quartz Cementation in Fractures"
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"Reservoir Quality
Prediction in Deep Water to Tight Gas Sandstones Using
a Process/Stochastic Modeling Approach"
02/22/04 |
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Field
Work '04
Planning
is underway for the FRAC field trip in July and for student
summer field work.
More
information is posted on the Members side. 2/20/04
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New
Fracture Picking Method & Software GoMezure™ |
A
new procedure for fracture picking and new software for extracting
structural information from scanned CL ../../images for scaling
analysis has been developed by Leonel Gomez.
We
are currently testing the software on fracture data sets from Wyoming,
Colorado, Venezuela, northeast Mexico, and other areas.
A
description of the new methodology and the software will be posted
on the Member's Site under Transfer Modules. Instruction in the
use of the new software is planned for the workshop associated with
the July Research Meeting. At that meeting we will also review progress
in automated image mosaic acquisition.
The
new methodology and software replaces the procedure based on the
OrlandoMagic software. An advantage of the shift is that the fracture
mapping and extraction procedures use current, cheap and widely
available software as a starting point. The new methodology reduces
the time it takes to quantify the properties of interpreted fractures
and also gives the user tremendous flexibility to quantify those
properties.
1/29/04
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Steve
Laubach has been named a Jackson Research
Fellow for 2004-2005.
Funds
from the fellowship are being used to support graduate student
field projects on structural diagenesis. Among the thesis
projects underway are studies in NE Mexico, Wyoming, Utah,
and NW Scotland.
Information
for prospective students can be found on the Department of
Geological Sciences web site. |
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AAPG
Hedberg Research Conference on Structural Diagenesis
was held in Austin February 8 through 11, 2004. See the AAPG
web site for  more
information. [ FRAC
participation ].
The
image to the right shows fractured grains (pink, light blue),
quartz cement coating grains and in fractures (dark blue)
and porosity (green) in samples from deformation bands in
Robin Hill's field area, Aztec Sandstone, Valley of Fire,
Nevada. Scanned CL image by Rob Reed. For more information
see: Milliken, K. L., Reed, R. M., and Laubach, S. E.,
in press, Quantifying compaction
and cementation within deformation bands in porous sandstones:
in Sorkhabi, R. et al. (eds.) Faults and Petroleum Traps,
American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Memoir.
1/29/04
updated 2/3/04, 2/20/04 |
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FRAC
Research Meeting 04—Plans
for the 2004 Research Meeting, field trips, and short course/workshop
are posted on the private side of this site under Meetings
and Calendar and the meetings
summary on the public site.
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The
Research Meeting will be held on July 19th and 20th in Utah.
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| A scene
from Steve Laubach's November visit to the Society of Petroleum
Engineers South China section and the Shengli Oilfield Company,
Shandong Province, China. The visit was part of Steve's SPE
Distinguished Lecture tour in Asia. Other stops included
Vietnam, The Philippines, Japan, and Korea. |
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Open
fracture having synkinematic quartz bridges, Jurassic,
Mexico. Meghan Ward is studying these structures as
part of her M.S. thesis research. |
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A
field party will be in northeastern Mexico, where studies
of fractured carbonate and siliciclastic rocks
are underway. See the private side for details.
A
group of FRAC researchers will be in Houston, visiting
with various Member companies and reviewing
case studies and a group will visit Denver
for sample collection and discussion
of ongoing studies.
Steve
Laubach will be in Mexico and various localities in
New Mexico as part of the SPE Distinguished
Lecture tour.
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Fractured
Reservoirs
Jon
Olson will be in London on November 16 & 17,
2004 delivering a keynote address at the
Fractured Reservoirs Conference, the Geological Society, Burlington
House, London.
Visit
Jon Olson's FRAC
web page.
For
more information: www.geolsoc.org.uk or Geoscientist, June
2004, v. 14, no. 6, p. 21. |
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| The
2004 North American Rock Mechanics Symposium
(Gulfrocks) will be held in June, in Houston, and FRAC will
be there. Steve Laubach co-chairs the fractures and faults session
on Monday, June 7, Jon Olson co-chairs the hydraulic fracturing
session, and Jon Olson, Julia Gale, and Namsu Park present papers.
Dick Plumb of Schlumberger is one of the conference organizers.
See the ARMA web
site for more information and the private side
for preprints and slides. |
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FRAC
will be involved with several sessions at the 2004 AAPG
Convention in Dallas in April, including:
Characterization
and Modeling of Fractured Reservoirs (AAPG)
on Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Oral session begins at 8:00 AM, C146.
Poster session begins at 1:30 PM. S.
Laubach, L. Taylor, and A. Chambers, co-chairs.
Geological
Uncertainty in Reservoir Modeling and Prediction (AAPG/SEPM)
on Tuesday and Wednesday, April 20-21, 2004
Oral
session begins at 1:25 PM on April 20, C155/156.
Poster session begins at 8:30 AM. on April 21. J.
Jennings, L. Lake, co-chairs. |
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Robert
K. Goldhammer Chair in Carbonate Geology |
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A
new chair has been formally approved in the Geology Foundation.
It was established by the Goldhammer Family Foundation in
memory and honor of Professor Bob Goldhammer.
It will be known as the Robert K. Goldhammer Chair in Carbonate
Geology.
The
Chair is restricted to faculty doing research in carbonate
stratigraphy and sedimentology, but excluding carbonate geochemistry
as a principal field of endeavor.
Picture
to left is Bob at the 2002 FRAC picnic.11/09/04 |
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