Publications

Deepwater hydrocarbon plays are the current main frontier for conventional discoveries around the world (Shirley, 2002). Significant petroleum reserves are proven in a variety of deepwater plays (Weimer and Link, 1991). Yet these plays are also some of the least understood in terms of sedimentation processes, reservoir and seal facies, reservoir architecture, interconnectiveness and compartmentalization (Wonham et al., 2000).The principal objective for modern and ancient outcrop-based analogue studies on deepwater deposits is to reduce the costs of exploring for and producing deepwater reservoirs by improving reservoir characterisation. Characterisation of deepwater reservoirs is often sanctioned on very little well and core data, and prospects are typically evaluated using 3D seismic surveys. While 3D seismic data is the most important tool for delineating external reservoir geometries, limitations exist in imaging internal reservoir architecture, including lithologies and continuity (Figure 1).When building geological models for reservoir prediction or to better characterize reservoir architectures, outcrop analogues are a low-cost option for integration with seismic, wireline, drilling and core data. As there is clearly a need for analogue data, the Deepwater Reservoir Analogues Group at the University of Adelaide currently focuses on the characterisation of slope and slopeproximal basin floor outcrop analogues in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia, and modern analogues from offshore east coast Australia.