Current Projects
Fault Zone Drilling Project
This is a new project which we are now getting off the ground. With funding from DOE, corporate sponsors, Utah State University, and in collaboration with Patience Cowie and Zoe Shipton at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), we will characterize of the three-dimensional fault zone structure, and the development of a permeability depiction of the faulted volume by drilling angled coreholes through the Bighole fault (Utah). Drill hole and drill core data, field mapping, hydraulic testing, and mechanical modeling will be combined with and probabilisitic modeling to construct a geologically plausible permeability structure for the faulted rock volume.
Characterization and Simulation of an Exhumed Fractured Petroleum Reservoir
From Outcrop Analogs to Fluid Flow Simulation
- A detailed characterization of the faulting and fracturing in an exhumed oil reservoir in central Nevada. Predictive models of fault and fracture distributions, geometries and fluid flow characteristics will be incorporated in numerical reservoir simulators to address production from fractured reservoirs.
- A detailed characterization of a faulted and fractured exhumed oil reservoir in central Nevada. The 3-dimensional characteristics of the fluid flow properties of a fault within a paleo-reservoir will be examined.
- Field Studies at Traill Island, Greenland, provide unique insight into the way that the internal architecture of a small normal fault (65 m of displacement) is influenced by variations in host rock lithology. Detailed sampling and mapping transects provide a basis for inferring how the architecture of the fault zone might control fault zone permeability.
Geodynamics & Fluid Pressure In The Cook Inlet Fold & Fault Belt, Alaska
- To determine the origin and nature of fluids, the fluid transport regime (plumbing system) and the relationships to: spatial and temporal distribution of fluid pressure, fault mechanics and earthquake generation, evolution of fold-fault system (geometrical and temporal effects), and implications for fluid transport in crust, including brines and hydrocarbons.
Faulted Geothermal Reservoirs: Dixie Valley Geothermal Field, Nevada
From Outcrop Analogs to Fluid Flow Simulation
- The permeability structure of fault zones determines rates and patterns of fluid flow in high-temperature geothermal systems. Unfortunately,insufficient subsurface information is generally available to adequately characterize the fluid flow properties of faults. In particular, we are unable to measure the in-situ variations in permeability, porosity, and storativity needed to assess their impact on geothermal production. We use outcrop analogs to aid in interpolating between wells and to provide a basis for extrapolating fluid flow properties from sparse wellbore data. Integrated surface and subsurface data obtained at the Dixie Valley Geothermal Field is being used to estimate input parameters for simulating fluid flow, heat transfer, and solute transport in this fault-controlled geothermal system.
3-Dimensional Hydrogeology of Fault Zones
Field-based analysisMathematical analysis
- We are developing physical models of the three-dimensional hydrogeologic structure of fault zones based on field mapping, mechanical modeling, and probabilistic modeling. Based on this model we develop inverse techniques for evaluating fault zone hydrology from well test data. This research integrates field work with deterministic and stochastic modeling to gain insight into how three-dimensional hydraulic conductivity structure of a fault develops through time.
Structural Geology Applied to the Evaluation of Fractured Sedimentary Bedrock Aquifers, Summit County, Utah.
- Kelly Keighley analyzed the structural geology of complexly deformed rocks in the Park City, Utah, area, in an attempt to characterize the hydrogeology of the bedrock there. Much of the development in the area is in bedrock, and wells are being drilled in some complicated compressional structures which greatly influence the hydrogeology.
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