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Lobe 2

Highlights

  • Seven fully cored research boreholes with a full suite of well logs have allowed reliable direct calibration of core with borehole image log datasets, and comparison to adjacent outcrop 3-D geometry and architecture.
  • Sedimentological and stratigraphic recognition criteria for intraslope or perched lobes and lobe complexes (Spychala et al., 2015).
  • Recognition criteria to distinguish between basin-floor channel fills and scour-fills.
  • Recognition and analysis of the suite of components that characterise channel-lobe transition zones, such as sediment waves, scour-fills, and base-of-slope lobes, to aid identification of the stratigraphic expression (Hofstra et al., 2015).
  • A matrix of key characteristics of lobes and lobe complexes in different palaeogeographic positions to aid subsurface interpretation.
  • Documented analysis of the effect of subtle (<1 degree) slopes on flow behaviour and stacking patterns in the construction of thick aggradational lobe fringes (Spychala et al., 2017a).
  • An assessment of the stratigraphic relationship between sand-rich channel-fills, and underlying lobe deposits, and how this can be used to infer avulsion dynamics, and the impact on reservoir quality and sandbody connectivity.
  • For the first time, an assessment and process explanation for the differences in sedimentology between frontal and lateral lobe fringes(Spychala et al., 2017b).
  • Quantification of lobe thickness and facies proportions by EoD.
  • Reliable observation-based criteria have been established in core and well logs to distinguish between superficially similar thin bed types, including lateral, frontal, and aggradational lobe fringes.
  • The integrated outcrop, core and well log results and interpretations from LOBE 2 represent a unique dataset and housed in a new Statoil-funded core store for training future generations of geoscientists and petroleum engineers.

Lobe 2 core store, Inverdoorn, South Africa

Publications

Spychala, YT; Hodgson, DM; Lee, DR (2017c) Autogenic controls on hybrid bed distribution in submarine lobe complexes, Marine and Petroleum Geology, 88, pp. 1078-1093. DOI

Hofstra M; Pontén ASM; Peakall J; Flint SS; Nair KN; Hodgson DM (2017) The impact of fine-scale reservoir geometries on streamline flow patterns in submarine lobe deposits using outcrop analogues from the Karoo Basin,Petroleum Geoscience, 23, pp. 159-176. DOI

Spychala YT; Hodgson DM; Prelat A; Kane IA; Flint SS; Mountney NP (2017b) Frontal and Lateral Submarine Lobe Fringes: Comparing Sedimentary Facies, Architecture and Flow Processes, Jounral of Sedimentary Research, 87, pp. 75-96. DOI

Spychala YT; Hodgson DM; Stevenson CJ; Flint SS (2017a) Aggradational lobe fringes: The influence of subtle intrabasinal seabed topography on sediment gravity flow processes and lobe stacking patterns, Sedimentology, 64, pp. 582-608. DOI

Hofstra M; Hodgson DM; Peakall J; Flint SS (2015) Giant scour-fills in ancient channel-lobe transition zones: Formative processes and depositional architecture, Sedimentary Geology, 329, pp. 98-114. DOI

Spychala YT; Hodgson DM; Flint SS; Mountney NP (2015) Constraining the sedimentology and stratigraphy of submarine intraslope lobe deposits using exhumed examples from the Karoo Basin, South Africa, Sedimentary Geology, 322, pp. 67-81. DOI