Thawing ice makes the Alps grow
3D ice-model of the Alps during Last Glacial Maximum (Figure: Jürgen Mey, University of Potsdam, background model based on ESRI Germany data). The Alps are steadily “growing” by about one to two millimeters per year. Likewise, the formerly glaciated subcontinents of North America and Scandinavia are also undergoing constant upward movement. This is due to […]
Read morePatagonian fossil leaves reveal rapid recovery from dinosaur extinction event
View of the Palacio de los Loros 2 fossil plant locality in Chubut, Patagonia, Argentina. The locality was deposited in the early Paleocene around 64 million years ago. Image: Peter Wilf / Penn State Ancient feeding marks from hungry insects in South American leaf fossils are shedding new light on the mass extinction that […]
Read morePlay concept: What is a play?
Oil fields don’t just happen. Each accumulation of hydrocarbons has a unique history associated with it. For example: At some point in the Earth’s past a river deposited a thick sedimentary layer of sand. Sea levels began to rise and burried the land in a deep sea. Fine particles settled and formed a shaley […]
Read moreO&G industry: Geology matters
For students in geoscience, the oil and gas industry is probably the most likely industry they will end up in. During our studies we often learn a given curriculum, have fun on fieldtrips, specialise in a certain topic, write a thesis and enroll in the next higher education level. Repeat. The result is that fresh-out-of-college-graduates […]
Read moreSpooky ghosts in seismic!
A ghost is in an unwanted part of the seismic signal. There are three different kind of ghosts, the receiver ghost and the source ghost and the combination of both ghosts. There are different methods to suppress it in the first place and to remove it from data. As discussed earlier, the perfect seismic signal […]
Read moreSediment loads of rivers in truckloads per minute
Rivers can carry immense amounts of sediments with them. For example the Mississippi river carries a sediment load of around 150 Million tonnes annually.((www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA486343)) That is a big number. Numbers are good, numbers are solid. But often not very easy to understand, or grasp its magnitude. So lets convert it to another unit. Introducing: TPM (Truck […]
Read moreExploration seismics 101 – Principle and Acquisition
This is the first part in a series of posts, called Exploration Seismics 101. The most commonly tool in exploration for oil and gas is seismics. (Sometimes the term exploration seismology is used in the literature as well.) It gives us an actual image of the earth’s subsurface by the same principle that is used in […]
Read moreWhy is the Brent called Brent?
Brent crude is a light sweet crude from the North Sea that is an established “brand” and trading blend of many North Sea oils. It has an API of 38 and is widely used in Europe. So why is the Brent called Brent? The short answer is that the name comes from the Brent oilfield […]
Read moreWhat is API oil quality?
Sometimes we see the term API or degrees API. The API degree refers to the specific gravity of the oil. Unlike density values it is inversely defined. So a high API value means a low density and vice versa. It goes back to the Baume scale which is a hydrometer scale to measure densities of […]
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