HGS Short Course: How to use Paleontology in the Oil and Gas Industry

Thursday, March 18, 2021

Virtual Event via Zoom

8:00am – 12:00pm CST

HGS Members $30  HGS Student Members $20  Non-members $45

Attendees will be emailed a Certificate of Continuing Education for 4 PDH after the event.

**Non-Members can submit a member application and pay their HGS dues before registering to get the member price. Please call the HGS office at 713-463-9476 to be registered only AFTER your application and dues are submitted.**

Registration will close Wednesday, March 17, 2021 at 4 pm.

Meeting links will be sent at this time to the “Primary” email listed on your HGS account.

Course Description

This 4-hour course will give a brief introduction on how paleontologists use fossils and biostratigraphy to help correlate borehole information. The primary focus of this course is to provide practical and pragmatic techniques for the non-specialist to help integrate paleontological information with other borehole data, as well as recognize when to seek specialists’ advice.  While this course is geared for the geoscientist, engineers (reservoir/drilling/completions) will also find utility.

Summary

This course will introduce micropaleontology, biostratigraphy, biofacies analysis, and chronostratigraphy to those who need to work with biostratgraphic data in subsurface correlations.  This course is designed for the industry professional to gain a full appreciation of how these topics contribute to, and are integrated in petroleum exploration and development. The basic concepts will be developed together with the essential vocabulary necessary to understand and communicate with specialists in those fields. Practical application of this knowledge will be developed through the use of examples, case histories, and hands-on exercises. The goal is to develop the geoscientist’s capability to competently and confidently employ paleontological information to stratigraphic analysis for exploration and development.

Learning Objectives

• Understand and recognize paleontological applications for borehole correlation
• Understand and design a borehole sampling program for paleontology
• Understand how to recognize geological events from a paleontological range chart
• Learn how to correlate boreholes with only a summary of bioevents
• Learn how to integrate fossil indices and biofacies with other geological data

Course Outline

Applied Paleontology

• Type of fossils and applications
• Logistics and Methods
• Zonations
• EXERCISE: Recognize geological horizons in a range chart

Applied Biostratigraphy

• Bioevents
• Chronostratigraphy and Geochronology
• Correlation
• EXERCISE: Correlating Boreholes with Bioevent Summaries

Applications for Exploration

• Paleoecology, Biofacies, and Paleobathymetry
• Fossil Indices and Biostratigraphic Sequences
• EXERCISE: Biostratigraphic Sequences
• Fossils and Black Shales; finding the oxygen minimum zones

Applications for Development

• Role of mud in the reservoir model
• Mud classification, ecology, and depositional timing
• Fossils and Reservoir Architecture of Fan and Channel complexes

About the instructor

Ryan Weber, President of Paleo-Data, Inc

Ryan Weber is currently the President of Paleo-Data, Inc., a biostratigraphic consulting firm serving the Oil & Gas sector for over 50 years. Ryan previously worked for BP as a Gulf of Mexico biostratigrapher. Mr. Weber holds a BS and Education certificate from Minnesota State - Mankato, and an MS from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. He also served as the Earth Science Section Chair for the Nebraska Academy of Sciences. Ryan’s career has applied biostratigraphy from onshore to deep-water Gulf of Mexico, the interior USA, Egypt Nile Delta, Northwest Australian shelf, offshore Mozambique, Colombia, Alaska, and the Spanish Pyrenees. Ryan’s passions include Miocene and Wilcox stratigraphy, Mesozoic paleooceanography, the Minnesota Twins, nostalgic comedies, and fermentation.

Instructor Contact Information:

Ryan D Weber

President & Biostratigrapher

Paleo-Data, Inc

ryan@paleodata.com

M: 504-508-1416

Event Contact

Bill DeMis

BillDeMis@AOL.com