The Taming of the Fault: Faults, seals and fluid flow on the Gulf Coast

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Presenter

Alex Bump, PhD
Research Professor
Bureau of Economic Geology
Jackson School of Geosciences
The University of Texas at Austin

Description

Faults are widely regarded as potentially important controls on subsurface fluid flow. In petroleum exploration, faults are known to trap large hydrocarbon accumulations and are widely thought to create important migration paths across stratigraphy. In subsurface injection, including saltwater disposal (SWD) and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), faults are regarded as potential containment risks that are difficult to conclusively mitigate. Considerable work has been done to develop prediction algorithms, but it has focused almost exclusively on faults in well-cemented brittle rocks where open fractures and subsequent cement can greatly enhance or retard fluid flow, respectively. These models are widely applied, even in places like the Gulf Coast, where young sediments are often poorly cemented and unlikely to fracture at all, much less maintain open fractures. The purpose of this talk is to investigate the long-term retention capacity of faults and top seals on the Gulf Coast, using data from hundreds of historic petroleum accumulations.