Tuesday, January 28, 2020
The Petroleum Club of Houston
1201 Louisiana Street, 35th floor, Houston, TX
- If you valet park we can give you a discount coupon, the Petroleum Club does NOT validate parking
Social 11:15 AM, Luncheon 11:30 AM- 1:00 PM
Cost: $35 pre-registered members; $40 for non-members/ALL walk-ups;
$35 for Emeritus/Life/Honorary; $15 for HGS student members if pre-registered and pre-paid.
To guarantee a seat, you must pre-register on the HGS website and pre-pay with a credit card. You may walk up and pay at the door if extra seats are available. Please cancel by phone or email within 24 hours before the event for a refund. Online & pre-registration closes Tuesday, January 28 at 5:00
Speaker: Ursula Hammes
Company: Hammes Energy & Consultants
Recent Mudrocks of the Cariaco Basin, Venezuela: Analog for Shale Oil & Gas Unconventional Reservoirs
The recent worldwide unconventional shale oil and gas boom raises questions about controls on the deposition of organic-rich, fine-grained rocks. Environmental and depositional factors such as upwelling, nutrient supply, preservation, and paleo-oxygenation ultimately contribute to the organic richness and hydrocarbon potential of the source rock. In finegrained rocks such as mudstones, geochemical investigations have proved useful in identifying productive source intervals for unconventional plays. Most studies on Paleozoic and Mesozoic producing source rocks compare redox-sensitive metals and major elements, TOC, isotopes, and mineralogy to identify sweet spots and probable producing zones. Geochemical and sedimentological studies of modern anoxic basins offer analogues for ancient basins and have the potential to elucidate answers to long-standing questions. However, a direct comparison of a Quaternary anoxic basin (e.g., the Cariaco Basin, offshore Venezuela) to Mesozoic source rocks, such as the Upper Jurassic Haynesville and Upper Cretaceous Eagle Ford Formations of Texas, has not been conducted to date. For this study, we selected three complete slabbed cores from the IODP Site 1002 of Leg 165 - Cariaco Basin - and described them for sedimentological structures, facies types, pore types, permeability, grain size, fauna, mineralogy, and ichnofacies. Geochemical analyses of these cores in addition to existing IODP analyses include major and minor elements indicative for anoxic and euxinic conditions, TOC, and isotopes. The Cariaco Basin and the Eagle Ford and Haynesville cores exhibit similar features, such as alternating layers of organic-rich, laminated marls and planktonic-foram-rich limestones. These alternating deposits exhibit distinct geochemical and sedimentologic signatures probably related to sea-level fluctuations, upwelling, and varying detrital sediment supply. Characterizing recent mudrocks with detailed controls of water and sediment geochemistry, oceanographic changes, age, and nutrient and sediment flux provide in-depth information for depositional and diagenetic controls on Mesozoic source rocks.
Dr. Ursula Hammes is currently President of Hammes Energy & Consultants and Adjunct Professor at the Department of Geological Sciences, Texas A&M University, teaching and assessing various shale oil/gas systems. Dr. Hammes has 25+ years of experience in the oil and gas industry and academia in Europe and USA in positions ranging from exploration, development, research and management. She has provided advanced consulting in shale-gas/oil and carbonate systems and has taught industry short courses and in-house training courses for universities and oil companies.
