Schedule for 2022:
- By request
Price:
- Professional: $4000
- Student: $2000
Contact for group and hardship rates
(includes tuition, guidebook, hotel, lunches, and field transportation)
Why Attend:
Fractured and faulted carbonate reservoirs (limestone and dolomitic) are high-priority targets for oil and gas exploration and production; however, they exhibit significant challenges due to their highly heterogeneous character, such as lateral and vertical facies changes, diagenetic alteration, and variable post-depositional fracture patterns, each of which affects the type, amount, and distribution of porosity, permeability, and nature of fluid pathways
Location:
The course will be conducted at spectacular outcrops of platform to basinal carbonate systems within the Apennine Mountains of Italy that have been highly fractured, folded, and faulted and which represent a unique and well-exposed analog for carbonate petroleum systems worldwide.
Course Objectives:
- Observe up close and actually touch reservoir rock
- Present concepts and principles associated with carbonate deposition and diagenesis for a wide range of environments
- Describe sedimentary facies and facies associations at scales ranging from hundreds of meters (seismic) to centimeters (core)
- Observe the expression and impact of small- and large-scale fractures and to see how fracturing is influenced by lithofacies and tectonic setting
- Understand 3D fault geometry and its influence on fluid migratory pathways
Schedule:
- Day 1: Arrive in Rome and drive to the hotel in Cagli Village for course introduction
- Day 2: Hike through the Gole-del-Burano carbonate platform and pelagic mixed carbonate/clastic succession and visit folded pelagic carbonates and black shales of the Gubbio Anticline to study facies distribution and relationships between facies and folding. Stay in the city of L’Aquila.
- Day 3: Study seismic-scale extensional faulting (Pizzoli fault) in massive platform dolostones and see a panoramic view of the Pizzo Cefalone platform to basin seismic-scale architecture. Visit the Cava Romana quarry to examine outcrop-scale petroleum system characteristics in fractured ramp deposits, including relationships between bitumen occurrence and both primary and secondary porosity. Observe the role of faults as conduits and barriers for fluid migration. Hike the Vallone delle Tre Grotte ramp and Gole di San Martino platform deposits. Stay in Fara San Martino.
- Day 4: View extensional faulting in massive platform carbonates and siliciclastic mudstones along the Venere, Tre Monti, and/or Val Roveto faults and visit platform base breccia (talus) deposits. Stay in Civitella Roveto.
- Day 5: Observe a seismic-scale hydrocarbon trap in the Pietrasecca anticline and sealing/conduit characteristics of extensional faulting along the Pietrasecca fault. Return to Rome for departing flights.
