Carbonate Sedimentology and Sequence Stratigraphy

Brochure picture Carbonates.png

Course length

3 days (light version) to 5 days (full version)

Target students

Geologist, geophysicists, and engineers actively working in the exploration and production of carbonate rocks.

Learning objectives

The ultimate objective of the course is to provide the geologists, geophysicists and engineers with tools and methodologies of carbonate sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy to effectively predict the presence and quality of reservoir, source rock and seal.

COURSE OVERVIEW AND CONTENT

This five-day course covers the basic concepts of carbonate sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy with emphasis on their practical applications for oil and gas exploration, appraisal and production. All concepts are illustrated with examples of outcrop, well-log, core and seismic data.

Principles of Carbonate Production

  • Modes of marine precipitation, carbonate-specific aspects of deposition and erosion.

  • Differences with clastic sedimentation. Carbonate mineralogy and diagenesis.

  • Classification of carbonate rocks.

Marine Modern Carbonate Environments and Facies Models

  • Carbonate Depositional Systems: Marine shallow-water and deep-water carbonates

Non-marine (lacustrine) Carbonates

Geometry of carbonate accumulations

  • Ramp, platforms, slope, localized accumulations, reefs and subtypes.

  • Wilson’s facies belts.

Carbonate Sequence Stratigraphy.

  • Systems tracts: lowstand (LST) transgressive (TST) and highstand (HST) system tracts.

  • Relative sea level changes deduced from seismic. Shoreline Trajectory.

  • The catch-up and keep-up highstand platform models.

  • Lowstand deposits: allochthonous wedges, autochthonous wedges and platform/bank margin wedges

Selected Examples

  • Anatomy of a reef: The Capitan Reef (Permian), Texas, USA

  • An Isolated carbonate platform: the supergiant Tengiz Field (Carboniferous), Kazakhstan

  • A seismically well-imaged, back-stepping platform, the Tertiary of the Maldives Islands

  • Microbial limestones as reservoirs: the pre-salt (Cretaceous) of offshore Brazil

  • Carbonates as unconventional plays: Wolfcamp A and B (Midland basin) and Vaca Muerta