Sedimentological research has traditionally produced geological models primarily relevant to hydrocarbon exploration, focusing predominantly on location and external geometry of sediment bodies and underplaying the importance of the internal reservoir framework. This failure severely inhibits the application of new and sophisticated technologies to improve recovery efficiencies. It-is reservoir architecture, the internal fabric and structure of a reservoir, that ultimately controls the paths of fluid migration during oil and gas emplacement and subsequent extraction. This architecture is, in turn, the product of the depositional and diagenetic processes that created the reservoir. If an understanding of the origin of the reservoir is developed, reservoir architecture, and hence fluid-flow paths, becomes predictable.
This volume assesses the current position of predictive geoscience for fluvial and aeolian systems, documents recent advances in methods and understanding and highlights outstanding problems. The authors form a wide spectrum of geoscientists from industry and academia, with leaders in the science providing review papers in their field of specialization.
The volume naturally divides into four sections: fluvial reservoirs, aeolian reservoirs, structure and methods.
