West Tech Breakfast: Depth to the top of overpressure in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico: ... Nov 13th
Complete Title: Depth to the top of overpressure in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico: Garden Banks, Green Canyon, Keathley Canyon, and Walker Ridge Sponsored by: Schlumberger and WesternGeco
Meeting Location:
Schlumberger Facility
10001 Richmond Ave., Q Auditorium
Houston, TX 77042
NOTE: You Must be Logged in To Register
Speaker: Sharon Cornelius, University of Houston
Co-Author: Peter A. Emmet, Brazos Valley GeoServices Inc.
For the Gulf of Mexico, overpressure is defined as the point below the seafloor at which the geopressure gradient reaches 0.70 psi/ft, or a 13.5 ppg drilling mud weight (Bebout et al., 1982 and Rabinovich, 2011). The geo-pressure gradient was calculated from 150 wells using the bottom-hole mud weights converted to psi and then subtracting the hydrostatic pressure of the water column. The depth at which the remaining sediment (pore) pressure would reach 0.70 psi/ft was then calculated using the geopressure gradient. There are twelve contributing factors to the formation of overpressure in the study area but the only one correlating over the whole region is water depth. Disequilibrium compaction is widespread due to high sedimentation rates during the Cenozoic; but numerically it does not contribute greatly. Other more significant contrib-utors are hydrocarbon generation, smectite to illite transfor-mation, and sandstone diagenesis. Location factors include seafloor topographic highs or lows, presence of salt bodies, salt movement, proximity to faults, geothermal gradients, and thickness of clastic lithological units.
Speaker Biography: Sharon Cornelius, University of Houston
Sharon Cornelius began her career in the oil & gas industry as a geophysical programmer at Exxon Production Research in 1980. From there, she went to Conoco as an exploration geophysicist working lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1992, she became a consultant in sequence stratigraphy for Landmark Graphics working under Dr. Peter Duncan in Caracas, Venezuela. After returning to Houston, she worked for Halliburton Energy Services as Principal Technical Administrator in Global Well Construction (1999-2002). In 2007, Sharon became Operations Manager, USA for Paradigm Geophysical at their corporate headquarters in Houston, TX. In the fall of 2009, she became a PhD student in Geophysics at the University of Houston working under Dr. John Castagna. Working part-time in industry as a Senior Consulting Advisor in Geophysics and Geology while in school, she has done projects for Korea National Oil Company (KNOC) in Calgary, Tiandi Energy in Beijing, OMV Petrom in Bucharest, and Pemex in Villahermosa.
She received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Houston, a M.S. in Physics from Rice University, then while working for Exxon, went back to Rice for a PhD in Geology under Dr. Peter Vail in sequence stratigraphy, and now has completed a PhD in Geophysics as of May, 2017.
Breakfast will be available starting at 7:00 AM
Technical Talk will start at 7:30
Event will end by 8:30
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