Volcanoes of the Deep Sea

For the first time you can be 12,000 feet below the ocean's surface, inside an unparalleled undersea volcanic world filled with strange creatures and dramatic landscapes. You've never seen anything like this as brand-new lighting technology far superior to anything that's ever been used before illuminates this secret realm. Exhibited to great acclaim in IMAX and other giant-screen theatres around the world.

Improving Oil Extraction With New Mapping Technology

ScienceDaily (Jan. 28, 2009) — Picture this: an accurate map of a large underground oil reservoir that can guide engineers' efforts to coax the oil from the vast rocky subsurface into wells where it can be pumped out for storage or transport.

Researchers in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have developed technology that can generate such a map, which has the potential to significantly increase the amount of oil extracted from reservoirs.

The new technology uses the digital image compression technique of JPEG to create realistic-looking, comprehensive maps of underground oil reservoirs using measurements from scattered oil wells. These maps would be the first to provide enough detail about an oil reservoir to guide oil recovery in the field in real time.

"Our simulation studies indicate that this innovative approach has the potential to improve current reservoir characterization techniques and to provide better predictions of oil-reservoir production. The hope is that better predictions ultimately lead to more efficient operations and increased oil production," said Behnam Jafarpour, a recent MIT graduate who is now an assistant professor in petroleum engineering at Texas A&M University.

Jafarpour and Dennis McLaughlin, the H.M. King Bhumibol Professor of Water Resource Management at MIT, published a pair of papers describing the technique that will appear in an upcoming issue of the Society of Petroleum Engineering Journal, as well as a third paper that appeared in the June 2008 issue of Computational Geosciences.

The top image shows the oil saturation map in a benchmark reservoir model with known properties (referred to as the true model). The bottom image shows a nearly identical reconstruction of that same reservoir map using the McLaughlin/Jafarpour solution approach, which took isolated data from 23 wells and simulated a 36-month recovery effort. Black dots represent the wells, remaining oil is indicated in red, and blue shows the water that remains underground following water pumping. (Credit: Image / Behnam Jafarpour)

The spatial structure in geologic formations makes it possible to compress rock property maps. But JPEG compresses the many pixels in a detailed image down to a few essential pieces of information that require only a small amount of storage. In the oil reservoir characterization application developed by MIT researchers, a similar mechanism is used to provide concise descriptions of reservoir rock properties. The new technique uses oil flow rates and pressure data from oilfield wells to create a realistic image of the subsurface reservoir.

Petroleum extraction is expensive and relatively inefficient -- sometimes as little as one-third of the oil in a reservoir is actually recovered through pumping. So engineers rely on enhanced recovery techniques such as water flooding to mobilize the oil. To guide this work, they make real-time predictions of subsurface variables, including oil saturation and pressure, but they're essentially working blindly. The rock properties needed to make these predictions (for instance fluid conductivity of rock at a particular depth) can't be seen or measured.

Instead, engineers infer geologic properties indirectly from seismic data and measurements taken at scattered wells.

"In a typical reservoir, millions of pixels are needed to adequately describe the complex subsurface pathways that convey the oil to wells. Unfortunately, the number of seismic and well observations available for estimating these pixel values is typically very limited. The methods we've developed extract more information from those limited measurements to provide better descriptions of subsurface pathways and the oil moving through them," said McLaughlin, lead researcher on the project.

In a 36-month simulated oil-recovery process, McLaughlin and Jarfarpour's estimation approach accurately captured the main features and trends in fluid conductivity of a reservoir formation, demonstrating that the new technique is robust, accurate and efficient.

"Our next step -- already in progress -- is to test our idea in real oil reservoirs and evaluate its impact on oil recovery under realistic field settings," Jafarpour said.

This research was funded by the Shell International Petroleum Co.

Original article was published here.

CGC and American Association of Petroleum Geology

Curtin Geology Club (CGC) will open a new student chapter of American Association of Petroleum Geology starts next semester. 

To rejuvenate CGC and give new looks to its stagnant image, we will conduct various activities in line with AAPG's programs for its members in Curtin Sarawak. CGC President, Muhammad Syafiq Suhaimi do hope that its members take their extracurricular activities to higher level so that everyone can have fun learning geology outside the class. He said the club welcomes suggestions and do hope for more commitments from its members. 

What is AAPG?

The Student Chapter Program of AAPG is made up of collegiate groups of geoscience students and one of the world's foremost co-educational programs within the geoscience sector with over 245 chapters. It provides students the opportunity to develop leadership skills and serves as a focal point for developing a feeling of professionalism through meeting industry representatives.

Member benefits include:

• the monthly receipt of the AAPG Bulletin and the AAPG Explorer
• online access to past three issues of AAPG Bulletin, Explorer and current abstracts from meetings, lecture tours, etc.
• discounts on books and other publications
• many types of education forums from schools to videotapes
• services of the AAPG Foundation Energy Resources Library
• AAPG Foundation Grants-in-Aid Program
• and registration savings on conferences and exhibitions

According to Syafiq Suhaimi, the benefits are actually far greater than that. AAPG is one of the foremost brand in Geoscience word and hence the easy accessibility to the industry. In fact, many of our activities which are financially-constrained can be easily carried out once we as members take club's activities seriously. 

HAVE YOU APPLIED TO BECOME ONE OF THE MEMBERS?

APPLY HERE NOW!

i-Geology

Hello!

Curtin Geology Club (CGC) would like to introduce you the new i-Geology blog which will be our medium of promoting Geology to our members and the rest of the world. As ambitious as this might sound and as humble as this blog might be, we really need your cooperations to play your parts in this blog.

What is i-Geology?

i-Geology is the blog of Curtin Sarawak's Geology Club. Focusing on the geological activities of its members, this blog provides a medium for these future geologists in showcasing the beauty of geology to the rest of the world particularly to aspiring young students interested in the science of the Earth.

From the top of Kinabalu Mt. to the cliffs of Tusan Beach of Miri, i-Geology gives you in detailed informations from student's perspectives.

Programs 

We want to provide a medium for Curtin's future geologists to share their experiences  be it from their field trips or geology classes to the rest of the students and perhaps, to the rest of the world.

It will be the best way for seniors to share their experiences with the juniors. We are also planning to do some email interviews with the seniors who have graduated from Curtin University to share their experiences. 

Apart from that, we are planning to involve lecturers with the blog. We will offer them the opportunities to put their thoughts, articles and updates on researches that they are currently doing. 

We would like to offer these positions to the members of Curtin Geology Club:

1. Chief Editor- This person in-charge will be put to deal directly with CGC President, Mr. Muhammad Syafiq bin Suhaimi
2. Bloggers- We need as many as possible so that there will be lots of interesting experiences and ideas that can be compiled under one roof. Representatives from each batch is highly welcomed.
3. Designer- As logic as this might sound, you must be able to make this blog look better than the current design, otherwise do not apply.
4. Photographers- We need a photographer for each activity of CGC's.  There is no need to mention what do you need to become a photographer but this task is quite simple. 

ALL OF THE POSITIONS, ESPECIALLY BLOGGERS ARE HIGHLY WELCOMED TO BE FILLED. PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CONTACT CGC PRESIDENT DIRECTLY THROUGH HIS FACEBOOK AT MAHARAJA SYAFIQ.