Conference Agenda

Fieldtrips are a central part of most geoscience training at all levels, from school to late career. Geology is the understanding of the earth and its internal structure and being immersed in the landscape surrounded by outcrops is, for many geologists, the most enjoyable part of the subject. The opportunity to observe and interact with the features that are described in textbooks or mapped in low resolution seismic makes the subject come alive. There are however downsides to fieldwork. Being outdoors all day is not everyone’s idea of fun and for some it’s not possible at all. Fieldwork is time consuming and expensive and there are significant health and safety issues and in times of global pandemic, fieldtrips are simply not possible.

In the early 2000’s the advent of terrestrial laser scanning (Lidar) allowed outcrops to be captured digitally with mm to cm precision and the “Virtual Outcrop” (VO) was born. A VO is a photorealistic 3D model of a cliff section in which all of the pixels are accurately georeferenced. VOs remained a specialist topic until the early 2010’s when the advent of cheaper consumer drones and new photogrammetric softwares lead to their widespread adoption. VOs can be used to measure and map features such as sedimentary geobodies or structural lineations. They can also be used as the starting point for Virtual Fieldtrips (VFTs).

Virtual Fieldtrips allow the user to be immersed in a digital realization of the outcrop, either on a computer or through a Virtual Reality headset. In a VFT the VO is augmented with additional data such as logs, plots of structural data or explanatory figures. Audio and video clips of an instructor can also be embedded. Smaller scale models can be nested into the main VO to show hand specimens and data from the subsurface such as wells, seismic or geomodels can also be included. VFTs are less geographical restricted than their real-world counterparts. A VFT on deep water depositional systems may start in a slope canyon in Mexico, visit slope channels in Spain and end in lobe deposits from the Karoo basin in South Africa. Thus allowing the participant to see the best examples of systems from around the World.

With global lockdowns and reduced travel, VFTs are providing an alternative for cancelled trips. Many geologists will feel that virtual fieldtrips are a poor substitute for the real thing but advances in technology are reducing that gap and in many cases the virtual experience has a significant advantage over a real-world trip, allowing more people to experience a far greater variety of outcrops than would be otherwise possible. The best geologist is still the one who has seen the most rocks, physically or digitally.

Wells are required to access hydrocarbon and geothermal resources and for deployment of CCUS. Drilling wells often generates significant risk exposure for safety, capital and reputation. To support sustainability, it is in the interest of all stakeholders that every well is drilled safely and successfully. Over many decades, the Oil & Gas industry has, through the use of multi-disciplinary Well Lookbacks, After Action Reviews and Incident Investigations, identified and implemented many well delivery related learnings to drive continual improvement in the O&G well delivery process.

This talk provides an overview of the multi-disciplinary geoscience input data gathered, integrated and communicated to O&G well engineers prior to spud to support safe, cost-effective and quality well design. A number of key process safety considerations will also be shared. It is hoped that the presentation content will encourage geoscientists involved in well planning activities, to constructively review how geoscience input can be better leveraged and communicated to well engineers to improve the safety and effectiveness of their corporate well delivery process.