PUGH, JONATHAN MICHAEL, K. W. GLENNIE, and B. P. J. WILLIAMS, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland

ABSTRACT: Three-Dimensional Modeling of an Aeolian Dune/Interdune System: Applications to Hydrocarbon Production

The Al Liwa region of the northeast Rub Al Khali, United Arab Emirates, comprises compound crescentic draa and subcircular inland sabkhas that are flanked to their north by a sand sea of smaller dunes extending almost to the coast of the Arabian Gulf. This controlled the supply of sand from the north and influenced water-table positions within interdune areas.

The draa, up to 170 m high, comprise both fine and coarse sands with a strong carbonate component, and are migrating very slowly to the south-southeast. The evaporite-encrusted interdune sabkhas often are underlain by foreset dune sands that also indicate transport to the south-southeast. The northern fringe of smaller dunes migrates southward more rapidly than the draa, but their northern supply of sand now has been cut off by flooding of the Gulf, initiating the deflation of coastal areas down to the water table.

A deep-penetrating radar survey, coupled with large-scale trenching, provides a three-dimensional model of dune/interdune systems. This fieldwork aids a clearer understanding of dune/interdune heterogeneities and interconnectedness, which in turn is providing more realistic reservoir models for interwell simulation studies within the Permian Rotliegende gas fields of northwest Europe.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90990©1993 AAPG International Conference and Exhibition, The Hague, Netherlands, October 17-20, 1993.