ABSTRACT: A GIS database for deep-water clastic reservoirs: organization and applications

Apperson, K. Denise¹, William E. Galloway², H. Scott Hamlin², and Christopher Kesler¹
(1) Energy & Geoscience Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
(2) University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

We have established a systematically organized catalog consisting of a GIS and relational database that can be used to characterize sand bodies deposited in slope and basin settings. The database consists of more than 100 variables, or attributes, that contain descriptive and interpretive information about such sand bodies, including keyword-searchable bibliographies and linked image files such as core and outcrop photographs, maps, cross sections, and log profiles.

Our objective in developing the catalog was the standardization of information about deep-water clastic reservoirs, facilitating comparison of different sand body attributes and construction of complex database queries in order to discover relationships between them. The database structure is based on the philosophy that the maximum predictive power is achieved if the attributes are grouped into genetically related families which reflect primary deep-water deposystem processes and boundary conditions.

Compared attributes should possess similar relative scale within both the hierarchical database and deposystem. Our database contains three levels of scale: (1) depositional system or play scale, (2) facies association or field scale, and (3) individual facies or intra-reservoir flow unit scale. Play scale attributes include deposystem type, architecture, lithology, water depth, and sediment source geometry. Field scale attributes emphasize external dimensions and typical log and seismic responses of facies building blocks. Reservoir scale attributes include bed dimensions and internal properties of discrete facies.

We demonstrate applications of our catalog with 24 examples of delta- and shelf-fed slope aprons and submarine fans, including well-studied outcrops; producing subsurface reservoirs; and Late Quaternary-Recent systems.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90913©2000 AAPG International Conference and Exhibition, Bali, Indonesia