2015 RCRL Annual Field Trip and Meeting
The Reservoir Characterization Research Laboratory (RCRL) group recently held its annual research review, which consisted of a one-day core workshop, two days of technical presentations, and a post-meeting field trip to the Guadalupe Mountains.
This year’s core workshop, partially presented by RCRL students mentored by Dr. Charles Kerans, featured parts of a long research core, on loan from Chevron, from the Guadalupe Mountains. Other core showed Lower Permian outer-shelf deposits and organic-rich Lower Cretaceous sediment accumulating in a salt-withdrawn, related intra-shelf basin.
The technical presentations were attended by 49 representatives of sponsoring companies. A new feature and highlight of the technical review this year was the poster session, where sponsors and RCRL staff and students could informally discuss and interact around 18 posters, 15 created by students.
Attendees of the post-meeting field trip to the Guadalupe Mountains visited limestone and sand outcrops of the updip section of the Avalon shale (led by RCRL PhD candidate Greg Hurd) and the most restricted part of the Permian shelf (led by Alton Brown and Dr. Bob Loucks). These outcrops provided an excellent opportunity to review regional‐scale evaporite dissolution and associated megascale deformation associated with the dissolution front, as well as mixed siliciclastic and carbonate restricted- shelf interior depositional model and facies.
2015 RCRL Annual Meeting: September 27 – October 2, 2015
Hello Everyone! We would like to invite you to the 2015 RCRL Annual meeting. The core workshop & technical presentations are held at the UT PRC campus and the fieldtrip will be between El Paso, Texas and Carlsbad, NM.
Please do not hesitate to contact Stephaine Lane with any questions you might have.
For meeting details, please visit the RCRL’s Events Page
Highlights of the meeting include:
| September 27 | Core Workshop at PRC Campus |
| September 28 | Technical Presentations and Ice Breaker at PRC Campus |
| September 29 | Technical Presentations at PRC Campus; Fieldtrip participants fly to El Paso, TX |
| September 30 | Fieldtrip – around Carlsbad, NM area |
| October 1 | Fieldtrip – around Carlsbad, NM area |
| October 2 | Fieldtrip – around Carlsbad, NM area |
Please do not hesitate to contact Stephaine Lane with any questions you might have.
Stephaine Lane
512-232-0774
stephaine.lane@beg.utexas.edu
We look forward to seeing you in October.
Regards,
The RCRL Group
2015 RCRL Annual Spring Field Course – Del Rio, Texas
The RCRL group ran the Annual Spring Fieldtrip to the Cretaceous outcrops in southwest Texas from May 3rd to 5th. The fieldtrip consisted of two parts and was led by Bob Loucks, Greg Frebourg, and Peter Soto Kerans. During the first part of the trip we visited the high-energy facies of the uppermost Lower Cretaceous Devils River Trend. This section exposes excellent examples of rudist reefs and large bulbous microbialites, which are reservoirs elsewhere in the world. The second part of the trip reviewed Upper Cretaceous deeper water, drowned platform carbonate systems. The area west of Del Rio has long roadcuts through the Buda Limestone, Eagle Ford Group, and Austin Chalk sections. Each of these units are active hydrocarbon plays in south Texas. Depositional processes and reservoir heterogeneity were emphasized.
