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The Snowbird conference was a great success and my co-conveners and I are now in the midst of receiving submissions for the conference-related SEPM Special Publication.
I would like to thank all of the presenters who made the meeting so stimulating, my co-conveners for all of their efforts, the SEPM and GSL teams for helping with the logistics (especially Theresa Scott, without whom the conference would not have run so smoothly), and finally, but most importantly, the sponsors, whose generosity ensured that we could support the keynote speakers and develop the SEPM volume in the way we wanted. So thank you ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell, GeoMark, GETECH, Hydro, and Fugro-Robertson.
The meeting summary and abstract volume are now available on the SEPM website. Follow the links to the "SUMMARY" and "ABSTRACTS" (the pdf of the abstract volume is about 4MB).
Numerous attendees have suggested a follow-up meeting and we would welcome any suggestions to this end. In the meantime I draw you attention to next September's SEPM/GSL meeting in Cambridge on Palaeogeography and Palaeoclimate, which will examine one of the most important, but frequently neglected, boundary conditions for Earth System Modelling and Exploration: palaeogeography.
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Keynote Speakers
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Alain-Yves Huc & Frans van Buchem (IFP): source rocks in a modelling perspective
Paul Valdes (University of Bristol): coupled ocean-atmosphere modelling
Chris Paola (University of Minnesota): fluvial erosion and transport modelling
Martin Wells & Peter Allison (Imperial College, University of London): palaeotide modelling
Richard Tyson (University of Newcastle): organic carbon modelling
Joe MacQuaker (University of Manchester): source rocks
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Meeting Aim
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Computer modelling of the Earth System provides a means of predicting the past distribution of depositional systems through time, and is therefore a powerful tool for oil and gas explorationists to use for assessing the nature and extent of source, reservoir and seal facies, especially in frontier areas where data may be sparse and exploration risk is high.
Computer models have been used in this way since the late 1970's, but it has now been over 10 years since Barron and Moore's SEPM short course on the application of climate modelling to Paleoenvironmental analysis (Barron and Moore, 1994) and 12 years since Huc and Schneidermann's Research conference on "Paleogeography, Paleoclimate and Source Rocks" (Huc, 1995). Much has changed over this last decade, with the development of more sophisticated models, a larger portfolio of experiments, a more robust understanding of the relationship between tectonics and the dynamic landscape (palaeogeography, which forms a critical model boundary condition), and refined models of the processes responsible for source, reservoir and seal depositional systems.
This meeting provides a forum in which to bring together and discuss these advances.
The key areas we wish to cover include the following:
i. To understand, define and model the processes responsible for source, reservoir and seal facies;
ii. To quantify modelling uncertainties;
iii. To provide practical examples of how models have been applied to frontier exploration;
iv. To facilitate discussion and the exchange of ideas;
We intend that this meeting will give rise to a comprehensive publication.
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Contact Details and Further Information
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Further information about this conference can be found on the SEPM website: http://www.sepm.org/events/researchconferences/rconferencehome.htm
If you would be interested in attending this meeting and wish to be included on the mailing list then do please contact me, or one of my co-convenors:
Paul Markwick: pjm@getech.leeds.ac.uk
Joe Curiale: jcuriale@chevron.com
John Suter: john.r.suter@conocophillips.com
Further information about the Snowbird venue can be found at: http://www.snowbird.com/meetings/
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Further Reading about the Geology of Utah
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If you are interested in the local geology I can recommend two general books that may be useful:
"Roadside Geology of Utah (Roadside Geology)" by Halka Chronic
ISBN: 0878422285
"Geology of Utah" by William Lee Stokes
ISBN: 0940378051
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Download Meeting Details
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If you would like to download a pdf (2 MB) with the conference details please click HERE (if you do not currently have Adobe Acrobat Reader on your system this can be downloaded for free from the Adobe website: www.adobe.com
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This is the first of two related meetings
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This is the first of two SEPM/GSL research conferences dealing with the issues associated with modelling in exploration; the second conference is titled "Tectonics, Palaeogeography and Palaeoclimate" and is scheduled for September, 2007 at St. Johns College, Cambridge, U.K. This is being organised by myself, Roy Livermore (BAS) and Matthew Huber (Purdue University). If you would like to be included on the mailing list for this second meeting then do please let me know: paul@markwick001.freeserve.co.uk
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