The ARIES Group, LLC

• Field seminar utilizes a case-study approach and emphasizes lateral relationships to develop a full understanding of the distribution of reservoir facies in depositional systems tracts.
• Facies/reservoir types examined include braided stream, meanderbelt, alluvial valley fill, shoreface, wave- and river-dominated delta, distributary channel and mouth bar, tidal inlet and tidal channel, transgressive lag, and shelf sand.
• Class size is kept small for mobility and to promote individual discussions with the instructor on the outcrops.
  

Watch your step!  Participants enjoying the view from the top of a ridge formed by the Jurassic Morrison Formation along the Waterpocket Fold, Capitol Reef National Monument, Henry Mountains Basin.

The "Clastic Reservoir Facies..."  field seminar focuses on the lithologic variations that characterize clastic reservoir facies and on development of models that can be used to predict these variations in the subsurface. The strata studied include excellent analogs for oil-and-gas productive units elsewhere, including the Wilcox Formation of the Gulf Coast, the Brent Group of the North Sea, and a wide range of Cretaceous and Tertiary formations in South America.  Participants will learn about clastic reservoir facies through a series of case studies. Case studies initially focus on the vertical facies successions thatcharacterize particular paleoenvironments, and the criteria that can be used to recognize them on wireline logs and in cores. The main emphasis of the case studies, however, is on lateral relationships within systems tracts. The scales of lateral variations examined range from reservoir heterogeneities at interwell spacing up to the more regional facies variations that form the basis for exploration models.

Lateral relationships that characterize clastic reservoir facies are demonstrated by walking representative units out in areas of continuous exposure. Citing just one example: on outcrops of the Ferron Sandstone, participants will examine the distribution of sandstone types and sedimentary structures in the landward part of a parasequence that accumulated on a prograding shoreface. They will then walk across the landward pinch-out into deposits of the lagoon and swamp that lay behind the shoreline. The emphasis in this field seminar is on practical applications: if, for instance, a discovery well penetrated a hydrocarbon bearing shoreface unit consisting of 8 m of upper shoreface and foreshore strata lying directly on a transgressive surface of erosion, what is the likelihood that an appraisal well drilled one km landward would also encounter shoreface strata, rather than non-reservoir lagoonal beds? The Ferron example mentioned above serves as an analog and provides an answer.

Larger-scale variations are examined by driving between localities. By this means, architectures of river-dominated deltas and of the meanderbelts that fed them are demonstrated in the Ferron Sandstone in Castle Valley and the Henry Mountains Basin and in the Straight Cliffs Formation on the Kaiparowits Plateau. The effects of subsidence patterns on the architectures of channel belts and shoreline sandstone bodies of the Dakota Sandstone are examined in the Henry Mountains Basin and on the Kaiparowits Plateau.

A hand here please...  Crossing Muddy Creek on the Ferron outcrops.  The field seminar involves a lot of hiking over fairly rough terrain.  Several days in the field involve a single, 3- to 8km long hike.

On a more personal level:  Why attend my "Clastic Reservoir Facies..." field seminar?

I completed my PhD on Cretaceous strata in northern Utah in 1975 and have been working on Cretaceous strata, at least intermittently, since that time.   I have worked on a variety of projects, many of them major, multi-man-year efforts, addressing reservoir facies and sequence stratigraphy of Cretaceous strata from the Colorado Plateau and Rocky Mountains regions northward into the Western Alberta Basin.  I have also worked on quite a large number of international projects and continue working on them today.  Most participants attend field seminars in order to study well-understood analogs for the units they are working on elsewhere, commonly outside of North America.  I've been in that situation myself, so I know what you're looking for.  I can provide it.

I have been teaching the "Clastic Reservoir Facies..." field seminar for AAPG since 1983.    It is a mature course.  Every aspect of it has been fine-tuned.  Though the rocks in the field remain the same year to year, the course has evolved.  I have expended an enormous effort during the past few years to completely revise all of the lecture material.  Recent participants have been pleased with the outcome and I know that you will be, too.

There is one other consideration that you may find important.  Many participants in AAPG field seminars come from overseas.  Most have not been to Utah before and may never be there again.  You've undoubtedly seen many pictures and movies of the stunning scenery that characterizes central and southern Utah.  Of the AAPG ancient clastics and sequence stratigraphy field seminars offered, mine ranges over the broadest and most varied geographical area.  After several days on the excellent Ferron outcrops, our route takes us through some of the most spectacular country in Utah.  We'll study Dakota and Ferron outcrops in Capitol Reef National Park; we'll climb through the Straight Cliffs Formation in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument; we'll spend the night near Bryce Canyon National Park, where you'll have several hours off to see the scenery; we'll have a hike Zion National Park to examine spectacular displays of eolian cross stratification.  The chance to see this kind of "post card" scenery, though not at the core of the course, certainly is an important additional benefit.