Our experienced team provides an integrated approach incorporating hands-on Zagros experience across a broad range of disciplines including sedimentology, stratigraphy, seismic processing and interpretation, structural geology, tectonics, regional geodynamics, and field-based survey and interpretation.
We have extensive “boots-on-the-ground” field experience in the Middle East, and since 2009 we have carried out twenty-six successful field campaigns in the northern Zagros, totalling many hundred field days, in over 40 license blocks, for 19 companies, covering an area of over 20,000 sq.km.
We offer a range of Zagros integrated reports and data packages available under a standard multiclient license agreement.
- We have detailed outcrop knowledge of Cambrian-Pliocene stratigraphy, and a broad understanding of the structural complexities throughout the region.
- We enjoy close collaboration with colleagues in Durham University with wide experience of the Iranian Zagros.
- We work extensively with sub-surface interpretation based on integration of surface geology, satellite imagery, published and proprietary information, and sub-surface geophysical and well data.
- Construction of cross-sections for regional and detailed anticline studies includes 150 balanced Zagros sections totalling over 8,000 km.
- We have comprehensive logistical capability, and our field teams are ready for bespoke single-client projects, as well as our own multi-client studies.
Steve Matthews – Structure and Tectonics
Steve is a globally respected structural geologist with over 35 years of industrial experience and a wealth of peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations. He was employed by BP for 26 years, working as Senior Structural Geologist, then Global Structural Geology Network Leader, before becoming Exploration Director (Basin Analysis) in 2013.
Steve's technical work included projects across the Middle East (Iran, Saudi Arabia), Black Sea and the Caspian, North Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia), Asia-Pacific region (SW Australia, offshore S China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, South Korea), South and Central America (Brazil, Colombia, Trinidad, Venezuela), Gulf of Mexico, Arctic Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Russia, Atlantic Margins and Europe (Alps, Norway, UK).
Jean Hsieh – Sedimentology and Stratigraphy
Jean has over 20 years of global experience in sedimentology and stratigraphy for exploration and development. Employment with Texaco, Chevron, Talisman and Repsol included positions as Team Lead for Carbonate Stratigraphy, Senior Sedimentologist, and Technical Manager of Stratigraphy and Sedimentology, and involved a diverse project portfolio including the Middle East (Kurdistan Region of Iraq), Black Sea, Kazakhstan (Tengiz and Karachaganak), W. Africa, Asia-Pacific region (Indonesia, PNG), USA (Central Wyoming, Permian Basin), and others.
Jean has wide experience of working and managing geoscience teams in which her own expertise in sedimentology and stratigraphy is combined and integrated with geophysicists, petrophysicists, structural geologists, reservoir modellers and engineers. Jean’s recent publications include papers in AAPG Bulletin, SEPM Special Publications, Geological Society of America, and The Geological Society, London.
Carlos Duque – Geophysics
Carlos has accrued over 30 years of experience in exploration geophysics, working first with Geophysical Services Inc.in Colombia and Brazil, and Halliburton in Colombia, Venezuela, and Russia, before spending 24 years with BP, based in Colombia, Australia, UK. A wide range of seismic acquisition and processing work has included projects in Iraq, Oman, Jordan, Abu Dhabi, Papua New Guinea, and Arctic Russia. Recent work has involved collaboration with Rosneft’s seismic teams to deploy new technologies and methods to increase productivity and quality of new and existing 3D seismic data, and to develop new seismic methods to accelerate exploration of new regions. Carlos has published a number of scientific papers in The Leading Edge and presented at conferences organised by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists and the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
Richard Jones – Field Geology and Interpretation
Richard is Managing Director of GRL and team leader for our field-based projects in the Zagros, where he has carried out over 250 days on the outcrop since 2009. He has carried out fieldwork for almost all companies currently operating in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and also has significant field experience in SE Turkey.
Richard has over 30 years of commercial experience from a wide variety of hands-on geoscience projects spanning five continents and including regional syntheses and field studies in many areas of exploration worldwide. He has a PhD in structural geology and tectonics, and has published and presented widely on Zagros geology at commercial and academic conferences.
Contact GRL Now:
+44 (0)191 384 1759