Petroleum Geology

Developments in Petroleum Science, 16 petroleum geology FURTHER TITLES IN THIS SERIES 1 A. GENE COLLINS GEOCHEMISTRY O F OILFIELD WATERS 2 W.H.FERTL ABNORMAL FORMATION PRESSURES 3 A.P. SZILAS PRODUCTION AND TRANSPORT O F OIL AND GAS 4 C.E.B. CONYBEARE GEOMORPHOLOGY OF OIL AND GAS FIELDS IN SANDSTONE BODIES T.F. YEN and G.C. CHILINGARIAN (Editors) 5 OIL SHALE 6 D.W. PEACEMAN FUNDAMENTALS OF NUMERICAL RESERVOIR SIMULATION 7 G.V. CHILINGARIAN and T.F. YEN (Editors) BITUMENS, ASPHALTS AND TAR SANDS 8 L.P. DAKE FUNDAMENTALS O F RESERVOIR ENGINEERING 9 K.MAGARA COMPACTION AND FLUID MIGRATION 10 M.T. SILVIA and E.A. ROBINSON DECONVOLUTION O F GEOPHYSICAL TIME SERIES IN THE EXPLORATION FOR OIL AND NATURAL GAS 11 G.V. CHILINGARIAN and P. VORABUTR DRILLING AND DRILLING FLUIDS 12 T.D. VAN GOLF-RACHT FUNDAMENTALS O F FRACTURED RESERVOIR ENGINEERING 13 J. FAYERS (Editor) ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY 14 G. MOZES (Editor) PARAFFIN PRODUCTS 15A O.SERRA FUNDAMENTALS O F WELL-LOG INTERPRETATION. I. THE ACQUISITION OF LOGGING DATA Developments in Petroleum Science, 16 petroleum R.E. CHAPMAN Dept. of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Qld. 4067, Australia ELSEVIER - Amsterdam - Oxford - New York 1983 ELSEVIER SCIENCE PUBLISHERS B.V. 1 Molenwerf P.O.Box 211,1000 AE Amsterdam, The Netherlands Distributors for the United States and Canada: ELSEVIER SCIENCE PUBLISHING COMPANY INC. 52,Vanderbilt Avenue New York, N Y 10017 Library of Congress Calalogrng in Pubhcation Data Chapman, Richard E. Petroleum geologg. (Cevelopments i n p e t r o l e m i s c i e n c e ; 1 6 ) Includes b i b l i o g r a p h i c a l r e f e r e n c e s and index. 1. Peti-oleum--Geology. I. T i t l e . 11. S e r i e s . TN670.5.c4$5 1963 ISBN 0-444-42165-3 553.2'E C 3-1 549 ISBN 0-444-42165-3 (Vol. 16) ISBN 0-444-41625-0 (Series) Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., 1983 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., P.O. Box 330, 1000 AH Amsterdam, The Netherlands 0 Printed in The Netherlands To my wife, June '%ur voir les choses, il faut les croire possibles. " (Marcel Bertrand, 1891) PREFACE The fascination of petroleum geology lies both in its complexity and in its importance to society. There is still much that we do not understand; and there is much to learn if remaining undiscovered reserves of oil and gas are to be found economically. It is also good geology with a healthy practical component. The great advances in geological thought and understanding in the 19th Century were based largely on the construction of coal mines, railways and canals. But this was almost two-dimensional geology of the land, bounded by the low-tide line. In the last 30 years or so, geology has moved offshore onto the continental shelves and ocean floors, largely under the stimulus of petroleum exploration, and with it has grown a great wealth of geological information. In “Petroleum Geology: a Concise Study” (published by Elsevier in 1973, with the paperback edition in 1976) I attempted to focus on those elements of petroleum geology that seemed to be amenable to synthesis and t o provide a broader understanding of some significant processes in petroleum geology. Since then, there has been an even more spectacular growth in the quality and quantity of geological information. We are still being buried under a mountain of empirical data. I remarked then, as many others had before me, that petroleum geology embraces more disciplines of science than on