MKP 1213

• APPLIED GEOSCIENCE &

GEOPHYSICS

• LECTURER: ASSOC. PROF

• DR. RADZUAN JUNIN
 MYP 1213

• CHAPTER 1

• INTRODUCTION
 Introduction

• What is Applied Geoscience & Geophysics or

Petroleum Geoscience?
• The disciplines of geology and geophysics
applied to understanding the origin and
distribution, and properties of petroleum and
petroleum-bearing rocks.
• The importance of petroleum geoscience is to
find petroleum and help produce it.
 Basic Geological
Principles
• To become a petroleum province, five
ingredients are involved;
 the source,
 seal,
 trap,
 reservoir, and
 timing of petroleum migration.
• These elements  Petroleum system
Basic Geological
Principles
 Basic Geological
Principles
• The source:
• A source rock is a
sedimentary rock that
contains sufficient
organic matter, when it is
buried and heated it will
produce petroleum.
 Basic Geological Principles

• High concentrations of organic matter tend to

occur in sediments that accumulate in areas of
high organic matter productivity and stagnant
water.
• To preserve organic matter, the oxygen
contents of the bottom waters and interstitial
waters of the sediment need to be very low or
zero, and a rapid sedimentation rate.
 Basic Geological Principles

• The Seal:
• Seals tend to be fine-grained or
crystalline, low-permeability rocks.
Typical examples include
mudstone/shale, cemented
limestones, cherts, anhydrite, and
salt (halite).
• Seals to fluid flow can also develop
along fault planes, faulted zones,
and fractures.
 Basic Geological Principles

• The presence of a seal or seals is critical for

the development of accumulations of
petroleum in the subsurface.
 Basic Geological Principles

• The Trap:
• The geometry of the sealed petroleum-bearing
container.
• The simplest trapping configurations are domes
(four-way dip-closed anticlines) and fault blocks.

• The mapping and remapping of trap geometry is

a fundamental part of petroleum geoscience.
 Basic Geological Principles

• The Reservoir:
• the rock plus void space
contained in a trap.
• The petroleum together with
some water occurs in the pore
spaces between the grains (or
crystals) in the rock.
• Reservoir rocks are most
commonly coarse-grained
sandstones or carbonates..
 Basic Geological Principles

• Porous rock and porosity:

• Porosity is the void space in the rock, reported
either as a fraction of one or as a percentage.
• Most reservoirs contain >0% to <40% porosity.
• Permeable rock and permeability:
• Permeability is a measure of the degree to which
fluid can be transmitted. The unit for permeability
is the darcy (D), although the permeability of
many reservoirs is measured in millidarcies
(mD).
Basic Geological Principles
 Basic Geological Principles

• The timing of petroleum migration:

• the timing of petroleum migration relative to the
time of deposition of the reservoir/seal
combinations and the creation of structure within
the basin.
• In order to determine whether the reservoir,
seal, and trap are available to arrest migrating
petroleum, it is necessary to reconstruct the
geologic history of the area under investigation.
 Basic Geological Principles

• Timescales:
• Petroleum maturation, migration and trapping of
oil can occur in a few million years.
• Geologic time is divided, using a hierarchical
scheme, into a variety of named units.
• The basic unit in this scheme is the period.
• The sequence of periods with their attendant
subdivisions and supra-divisions makes up the
stratigraphic column.
 The Geologic Timescale

• The geologic time scale - a “calendar” of Earth

history.
• The largest defined unit of time shown on the
geologic timescale is the supereon, composed of
eons.
• Eon - the greatest expanse of time.
• The earliest is the Hadean (beneath the Earth)
Eon, ranging from 4.6 to 3.8 billion yrs ago.
• The earliest-known life forms appear in rock from
the Archean (ancient) Eon, about 3.8 to 2.5 billion
yrs ago.
The Geologic Timescale
 The Geologic Timescale

• The Archean Eon gave way to the Proterozoic

(early life) Eon (2,500-543 mya).
• The beginning of the Phanerozoic (visible life)
Eon, 543 mil years ago, marks the first point at
which we find abundant fossil evidence.
• Eons are subdivided into three eras: the
Paleozoic (543-252 mya) , Mesozoic (252-65
mya) , and Cenozoic (65 mya-present day) .
• The first part of the Paleozoic (ancient life) Era
was dominated by marine invertebrates, such
as corals, clams, trilobites, and later fish and
amphibians.
 The Geologic Timescale

• The Mesozoic (middle life) Era was dominated by

marines and terrestrial reptiles, including the
dinosaurs.
• The Cenozoic (recent life) Era, which continues
today, is distinguished by its rich variety of
mammals.
• Eras are subdivided into periods.
• Periods are subdivided into epochs.
 Plate Tectonic Context of
Petroleum Basins
• Basins are generated by plate tectonics, the
process responsible for continental drift.
• The Earth's crust is made up of about 20 rigid
plates.
• Plates may be stretched and broken or pushed
together, or may rotate past each other. Each of
these processes —divergence (extension),
convergence (compression), and strike-slip (or
wrench)—can lead to the formation of basins.
Continental Drift

• The idea that continents,

particularly South America and
Africa, fit together like pieces of
a jigsaw puzzle.
• However, little significance was
given this idea until Alfred
Wegener (1915) proposed a
controversial hypothesis of
continental drift.
Continental Drift

• Wegener suggested that the

continents float on a denser
underlying interior and
periodically break up and drift
apart.
• Today the concepts of seafloor
spreading and plate tectonics
are firmly established.
Plate Tectonic Context of
Petroleum Basins
 Seafloor Spreading

• The rates of spreading (from

mid-ocean ridges) on either side
range from 1 to 6 cm/year or
total rate from 2 to 12cm/year.
• At this rate it would have taken
about 200 million years for the
present Atlantic Ocean to attain
its present width.
• An interesting feature about the
mid-ocean spreading ridges is
that they are sites for both
volcanic and earthquake activity.
 Plate Tectonics

• In the 1960s, an exciting new hypothesis

called plate tectonics revolutionized our
understanding on how the outer portion of
the Earth functions.
• According to this theory, the uppermost
mantle, along with the overlying crust,
behave as a strong, rigid layer, known as
the lithosphere, which is broken into
pieces called plates and their movement
as plate tectonics.
 Plate Tectonics Context of
Petroleum Basins
• The lithosphere (rigid plate) overlies a weaker
region in the mantle known as the
asthenosphere.
 Plate Tectonic Context of
Petroleum Basins
• Plate Boundaries: there are three basic types
of plate boundaries or margins.
 Divergent plate boundaries
 Convergent plate boundaries
 Transform plate boundaries
 Plate Tectonics

• Where two plates converge, they produce a

narrow, deep depression as the subducting
plate bends downward into the mantle. Such
depressions are called oceanic trenches.