March News

A lot of fracture work this month … firstly, we’re busy extending our multi-client studies of fractured reservoirs in the Kurdistan region beyond the Jurassic and Triassic, so that we’re now also covering all the key Cretaceous carbonate units in detail, including Shiranish, Aqra, Bekhme, Kometan, Qamchuqa, Garagu, and Chia Gara Formations. Throughout the Zagros the Cretaceous units tend to be so well exposed, with the more massive units cropping out in cliff sections and very extensive pavements that form the main carapace to many of the four-way closing anticlines – an ideal situation to derive very robust measurements of connectivity, and for scaling relationships of both height and length of fractures across several orders of magnitude. And that really helps to ensure that you have the best inputs to produce representative fracture network models.

Main image (above): Upper Cretaceous fractured carbonates, Kurdistan.

Coastal exposures of fractured Jurassic shales, eastern UK.

We’ve also been continuing our work on fracturing in shales this month too, as part of our ongoing work on the Jurassic of the UK. Fracture systems in shales typically have quite different characteristics compared to carbonates, so it’s interesting to be working in contrasting types of fractured reservoir. The quality of exposure can sometimes be a challenge when studying shales – we’re fortunate that there are plenty of extensive, really excellent outcrops along the English coast.

Contact us for more information if either of these areas might be of interest.