In this advanced course on structural geology, students will learn about various structural features, both macroscopic and microscopic, as well as how they develop, analysis methods, and how to interpret structures in relation to tectonic processes. By working backward, a student can decipher the history of rock deformation through the practical aspect.

To raise participants to a common level where they can approach the more specialized elements, the course includes a basic skills component. Large-scale structural geology, reservoir rock properties, and geomechanics are the course elements that teach advanced structural geology and subsurface rock properties.

Course Objectives:

Geology is so fundamental to the petroleum industry that knowledge of its basic principles is desirable for all persons associated in any way with the industry. Petroleum geology is based on observation and utilizes many other sciences. The basic principle that “the present is the key to the past” is the concept that processes that acted on the earth in the past are very similar to or the same as those operating today. The geologist’s conclusions are derived by:

Observing the results of the earth’s history and processes
Reconstructing the events giving rise to certain formations and their arrangement
Predicting where oil accumulations might occur
To reconstruct the conditions and processes that control the development of complex plastic and brittle deformation systems
To deduce large structures of the earth from small –scale geologic structures
To understand the concepts and criteria for rock deformation
To understand the structure of the earth and the controls for distribution of the structures.
To investigate the concepts of stress, strain, deformation mechanisms and methods of strain measurement.

Who Should Attend?

All persons associated in any way with the oil industry, especially Mud Loggers, well site geologists, pressure engineers, Mud engineers, and Drilling engineers.

Course Outlines:

Petroleum System Module

Introduction to petroleum geology and Petroleum system
Structural geology and subsurface mapping
Reservoir sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy

Exploration Module

Exploration geophysics
Exploration geochemistry

Rock mechanics:

Complex plastic and brittle deformation systems, stress and strain, strain analysis, joints, shear fractures, shear zones, fault mechanics, fault classification &terminology, fold geometry and classification, fold mechanics, complex folds.

Fabrics and structural analysis

Foliations- cleavage, lineations, lineament analysis, diagram techniques, construction and interpretation of block diagrams and contour maps

Geotectonics:

Global geotectonic hypotheses, regional tectonic analysis of Precambrian shields and platforms, orogenic belts & rift zones, magma associations related to plate tectonics, structural framework.

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