Recent Publications and Theses

Cudjoe, S., Vinassa, M., Gomes, J.H.B., and Barati, R. G., 2016, A comprehensive approach to sweet-spot mapping for hydraulic fracturing and CO2 huff-n-puff injection in Chattanooga shale formation: Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering, v. 33, p. 1201-1218.

Rush, J., and Rankey, E.C., in press, Geostatistical facies modeling trends for oolitic tidal sand shoals: AAPG Bulletin.  This paper describes an integration of core, shallow seismic (Chirp), and surface sediment data to generate geostatistical trend metrics for an oolitic shoal system.  These insights are then applied to generate a suite of geologic models that illustrate heterogeneity that could be present in ancient analogs.

Goldstein et al. integrate controls and history of hydrothermal fluid flow in the Midcontinent, including the Ordovician, Mississippian, and Pennsylvanian. It shows that there is a 5-stage evolution of the system and that the reservoir porosity and thermal history have structural controls.  This will be published in the new AAPG Memoir on the Mississippian.

Li et al. quantify calcite cementation associated with meteoric diagenesis during a time of progressive uplift and long-term subaerial exposure.  It will be published in Sedimentary Geology

King and Goldstein evaluate the impact of hydrothermal alteration on the Ordovician Arbuckle Group. It introduces the concept of inverted thermal structure that relates to regionally advective hydrothermal fluid flow. In: Armitage, P.J., Butcher, A.R. et al. (eds) Reservoir Quality of Clastic and Carbonate Rocks: Analysis, Modelling and Prediction. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 435.

Roberts, Jen, in press, Dolomite and Dolomitization:  Encyclopedia of Geochemistry.

Rankey, E.C., 2016,  On Facies Belts and Facies Mosaics: Holocene Isolated Platforms, South China Sea is available to sponsors.   This manuscript (Sedimentology) describes quantitative metrics of patterns of facies size and distribution on 27 platforms in the Paracel and Spratly chains.  These metrics provide a basis for numerical modeling of these systems, revealing fundamental system-scale process dynamics that represent “persistent themes” of facies accumulation.  The metrics and insights could be applied to generate reasonable and accurate geological models of ancient analogs.

Diana Ortega-Ariza, Evan K. Franseen, Hernan Santos-Mercado, Wilson Ramírez-Martínez, and Elson Core-Suárez, Strontium Isotope Stratigraphy for Oligocene-Miocene Carbonate Systems in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic: Implications for Caribbean Processes Affecting Depositional History (The Journal of Geology) is available to sponsors. Oligocene-Miocene carbonates are increasingly being recognized as important petroleum reservoirs in the Caribbean (e.g., Perla field, offshore Venezuela). This paper provides an updated and refined chronostratigraphy for Oligocene-Miocene shallow-water carbonate units, which is critical for correlation to other areas and determining the global, regional, and local processes (e.g., global warming, Caribbean upwelling, sea-level fluctuations, and gradual closure of the Central American Seaway) that affected deposition in the region. As a result of dominant regional controls on deposition, Oligocene to middle Miocene Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic carbonate systems are similar to time-equivalent carbonate systems that form significant reservoirs in the Caribbean, and can serve as outcrop analogs for development of predictive models.

Poteet, Goldstein and Franseen, 2016, Stepwise shifts in reservoir sweet spots: Diagenetic analysis for prediction in oolite across structural highs, Special Publication of the Geological Society of London on Reservoir Quality of Clastic and Carbonate Rocks: Analysis, Modelling and Prediction It examines diagenetic controls on porosity in oolitic reservoirs across a structural high and develops models for predicting the location of reservoir sweet spots as a  function of diagenetic stage.  The study shows the prior porosity and permeability affects the subsequent diagenetic reactions, and thus causes shifts in preferred reservoir location over time. It develops conceptual models based on a history of meteoric, reflux, burial, and hydrothermal diagenesis in relation to structural position that can be used across structural highs and flanks.

Geske, Goldstein, Mavromatis, Richter, Buhl, Kluge, John, and Immenhauser, in press, The magnesium isotope (26Mg) signature of dolomites is in press in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.  This paper is a survey of dolomites from a variety of low temperature and high temperature settings.  It uses stable isotopes, fluid inclusions, and clumped isotopes to evaluate the conditions of dolomitization.  The Mg isotope signatures are analyzed from these known settings in order to evaluate the controls on Mg isotope fractionation in dolomites.

Ramaker, E.M., Goldstein, R.H., Franseen, E.K., and Watney, W.L., in press, What controls porosity in cherty fine-grained carbonate reservoir rocks? Impact of stratigraphy, unconformities, structural setting and hydrothermal fluid flow: Mississippian, southeast Kansas: in S. Agar and S. Geiger, eds., Fundamental Controls on Fluid Flow in Carbonates: Current Workflows to Emerging Technologies, Geol. Soc. London and AAPG Special Publication.A joint publication of AAPG and the Geological Society of London.  The results show fundamental stratigraphic and diagenetic controls on reservoir porosity, where upwelling along a distally steepened ramp margin concentrate silica-rich facies. Unconformities have an impact, but so does fracturing and late hydrothermal fluid flow.

Hiemstra, E.J., and Goldstein, R.H., in press, Repeated injection of hydrothermal fluids into downdip carbonates: a diagenetic and stratigraphic mechanism for localization of reservoir porosity, Indian Basin field, New Mexico, USA: A joint publication of AAPG and the Geological Society of LondonThis paper examines the Indian Basin field of the Permian Basin, a reservoir controlled by  slope position and tectonically valved hydrothermal fluid flow. The study produces a fluid and thermal history for this part of the Permian Basin and places this history in the context of tectonic setting. It produces broadly applicable ideas to exploration for hydrothermal dolomite reservoirs.

Li, Z., Goldstein, R.H., and Franseen, E.K., in press, Geochemical record of fluid flow and dolomitization of carbonate platforms: Ascending freshwater-mesohaline mixing, Miocene of Spain.  Click HERE for a pre-print.  This paper, funded and recently released by ExxonMobil’s FC2 consortium, presents geochemical data helpful in evaluating the controls on dolomitization by the ascending freshwater-mesohaline mixing model. These data are used to present a conceptual model of climate and hydrogeology useful in predicting this kind of dolomitization in the subsurface. The paper will be published in a special issue of the Geological Society of London and AAPG on Fundamental Controls on Fluid Flow in Carbonates: Current Workflows to Emerging Technologies.

Benson, G.S., Franseen, E.K., Goldstein, R.H., and Li, Z., in press, Workflows for incorporating stratigraphic and diagenetic relationships into a reservoir-analogue model from outcrops of Miocene carbonates in SE Spain: Petroleum Geoscience. The paper, funded and recently released by ExxonMobil’s FC2 consortium, concerns workflows for incorporating stratigraphic, mapping, LiDAR, and diagenetic information into 3D geomodels. It provides useful reservoir analogs to SE Asia carbonate reservoirs. The workflows developed are broadly applicable to the subsurface.

Buijis, G.J.A., and Goldstein, R.H., in press, Sequence architecture and palaeoclimate controls on diagenesis related to subaerial exposure of icehouse cyclic Pennsylvanian and Permian carbonates: IAS Special Publication 45, p. 55-80.

Csoma, A.E., and Goldstein, R.H., in press, Diagenetic salinity cycles: A link between carbonate diagenesis and sequence stratigraphy: IAS Special Publication 45, p. 407-444.

Franseen, E.K., and Byrnes, A.P., in press, Arbuckle Group Platform Strata in Kansas: A Synthesis, in J. R. Derby, R. D. Fritz, S. A. Longacre, W. A. Morgan, and C. A. Sternbach, eds., The Great American Carbonate Bank: The geology and petroleum potential of the Cambrian –Ordovician Sauk sequence of Laurentia: AAPG Memoir 98 , p. 1 – 17.