The AASPI research group, led by Principal Investigator Dr. Heather Bedle, Associate Professor in the School of Geosciences and Director of the Sustainable Energy Systems Program at OU's Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy, recently received a $100,000 AEGIS grant from the AAPG Foundation, the charitable arm of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, for their project titled "Advanced Reservoir Heterogeneity Characterization Using Distance-Quadrant Seismic Attributes: Applications Across the Energy Spectrum." AEGIS is a new pilot program that funds applied geoscience research at U.S. universities and supports the graduate students who carry it out.
The project builds on a new method for reading seismic data, the echoes of sound waves sent deep underground, that Dr. Bedle and her colleagues introduced in a recent series of papers in the scientific journal, Interpretation. Called distance-quadrant (DQ) attributes, the method takes the same measurements geoscientists currently use to study rock layers and re-expresses it so that each signal is measured by how much it stands out from ordinary shale, (a common background rock), and in what direction.
In early tests on the Volve Field, an offshore oil field in the North Sea, the method separated shale, water-filled sand, and oil-filled sand more clearly than the standard approach. It also sharpened the view of faults and thin, buried channels, and it revealed signs of oil or gas that is barely visible in conventional images.
The team is now testing the method on land in Texas and Oklahoma, in rock types ranging from limestone-type reservoirs to shale. The goal is to help get more oil out of existing fields, store carbon dioxide safely underground, and tap geothermal energy. The researchers are also combining the method with machine learning so they can predict what rocks are like in places where wells have yet to be drilled.
The grant funds two new PhD students, Nilo Matheus, from Brazil, and Asad Taimur, from Pakistan. Dr. Bedle hadn't initially planned to bring in new students because of funding limitations, so she posted a note on LinkedIn. More than 100 prospective students sent her their CVs. “I was moved by how many talented people want to study at OU in the AASPI consortium research group, and I'm grateful to the AAPG Foundation for making it possible to bring two of them to The University of Oklahoma”. Welcome, Nilo and Asad!
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