Oil and gas resource assessment: The linkage between geological analysis and discovery process model results

Two widely-used techniques to estimate the volume of remaining oil and gas resources are discovery process modeling and geologic assessment. Both were used in a recent national assessment of oil and gas resources of the United States. Parallel estimates were obtained for 27 provinces. Geological-based estimates can typically see into areas not available to discovery process models (that is areas with little or no exploration history) and thus, on average, yield higher estimates. However, a linear relation does exist between the mean estimates obtained from these two methods. In addition, other variables were found in a multiple regression model that explained much of the difference. Thus, it is possible to perform discovery process modeling and adjust the estimates to yield results that might be expected from geological-based assessments.     

稀土矿床：基本特点与全球分布规律

本文介绍了全球稀土资源供需历史、现状和对未来的展望。从矿床成因视角切入，将稀土矿床分为内生和外生两大类型，其中内生稀土矿床包括碳酸岩型、碱性岩型、碱性岩型- 碳酸岩型、氧化铁铜金型、热液脉型，外生稀土矿床包括风化壳离子吸附型、沉积岩型、沉积矿产(煤矿、铝土矿和沉积磷矿)伴生型、砂矿和现代海洋底部含稀土的锰结核、结壳和软泥型。归纳总结了主要类型矿床的基本特点和时空分布；认为内生稀土矿床产出于四类构造环境，包括裂谷环境、碰撞后伸展环境、大陆碰撞环境和后俯冲伸展环境；从构造演化入手，探讨了在外生与内生地质过程中稀土元素的迁移和富集规律，建立了涵盖主要矿床类型的构造- 成矿模型。     

珠江口盆地西江主洼油气差异分布机制

西江主洼是珠江口盆地一个低勘探程度洼陷，油气差异聚集特征明显，但其机理不清。本文在断陷盆地油气成藏理论指导下，利用研究区地质、地球物理和地球化学等资料，开展了烃源岩、断盖组合、储集体系和运聚模式等方面的研究。结果表明，裂陷期沉降、沉积中心有序迁移，造成主力烃源岩自东向西由文四段迁移至文三段、文一+二段，控制东、西部油气差异分布。恩平组区域性泥岩发育且晚期断裂缺乏，导致油气纵向上更易聚集于下构造层；区域泥岩减薄尖灭或晚期断裂切开盖层的区域，上构造层有一定油气分布。"源-汇"类型从宏观上控制储层优劣，影响下构造层油气富集程度；"仓储"运移是控制上构造层油气规模聚集的主要模式。下构造层古近系应作为重点部署方向，东部围绕文四段、西部围绕文三段、文一+二段烃源岩构成的含油气系统展开；上构造层勘探需关注珠海组，在隆起周边寻找具备"仓储"运移模式的有利区带。     

The American whale oil industry: A look back to the future of the American petroleum industry?

The American whaling industry rose from humble beginnings off Long island to become an international giant. In its peak year, 1846, 735 ships and 70,000 people served the industry. As whale stocks and reserves decreased, whalers were forced to go farther and farther from their New England home ports. Voyages became longer, and risks on required return-on-investment became higher. The easy money of Atlantic and Pacific whaling was no more: the only remaining profitable ventures were to Arctic and Antarctic waters. Many ships returned empty, if at all. in 1871, most of the Arctic whaling fleet was crushed by early winter ice and lost. This calamity, in conjunction with the long-term diminishing whale stocks, the diversion of investment capital to more profitable ventures, and the discovery, development, and refinement of abundant petroleum crude oil, struck the death blow to the American whaling industry. By 1890, only 200 whaling vessels were at work, and by 1971, no American commercial whaling ship sailed the world's oceans.It is apparent that no single event caused the final, rapid decline. However, a single calamity, in an already stressed industry, that was self-insured and commercially interlinked, precipitated the end. Today's American petroleum industry, although adopting some principles of the American whaling industry, also has embraced other activities such as work process reengineering and customer alliances, which may preempt, or postpone, a similar catastrophic demise.     

综合利用地震多参数预测油气藏

以吉林省境内红星构造带(已发现油田)和杨柳青构造带(未发现油田)为试验区,首先利用地震地层学方法,研究间接参数特征,确定有利相带和有效圈闭,并在有效圈闭上选择了39个2×2cm时窗。在时窗内提取与地震波动力学有关的信息,即频率、振幅、频谱能量等,然后对这种信息进行统计计算,获得振幅方差等九个参数并对其进行综合分析,从已知油气藏出发,对未知圈闭油气状况进行了三级预测,指出了最有利的勘探靶区。     

Quantification of the risk associated with high levels of mercury pollution at Temirtau, Kazakhstan

This research aims to establish the risks of hurnan exposure to modeling approach. The study site was located on the River Nura 1990s, an acetaldehyde production plant located in the industrial high environmental mercury levels, based on a quantitative risk in central Kazakhstan. From the 1950s until its closure in the mid city of Temirtau released mercury-containing wastewater into the river. River sediments are highly contaminated with mercury up to a distance of 25 km and beyond. In addition, a local power station released an estimated 6 million tonnes of fly-ash into the water and the mercury has become quite tightly associated with the ash deposits. River water, fish and agricultural land in the floodplain are also contaminated with mercury, yet the risks posed to the local population have not been evaluated to date. In June and July 2005, we took samples of soil, interior and exterior dust, drinking water, and food from individual households, communal areas and markets. Additionally, water and sediment samples and fish were taken from the river. Interviews were conducted with householders to establish their age and body weight, general living conditions and sources of irrigation and drinking water. A food frequency questionnaire （FFQ） was designed to investigate the frequencies of consumption of several common regional food items, including fish from the fiver and/or local market. Human hair samples were also collected to estimate the mercury bioburden and to enable the validity of the modeling approach to be established. The paper expands on the main pathways of contamination and looks at linkages between exposure pathways and mercury concentrations found in human hair. Uncertainties inherent in risk analysis as well as their influence on the relative importance of different exposure routes are also discussed.     

Water–rock interaction during the process of steam stimulation exploitation of viscous crude oil in Liaohe Shuguang Oil Field, Liaoning, China

In the process of steam stimulation exploitation of viscous crude oil, the injected water, at high temperature and under high pressure, reacts intensively with the host rock. This kind of water–rock interaction in Liaohe Shuguang Oil Field was studied on the basis of analysis of water composition changes, laboratory experiments, mineral saturation indices analysis, and mass balance calculation. Compared with the injected water, the changes of the composition of discharged water are mainly the distinct decrease of pH, Na⁺, SiO₂ and Cl⁻, as well as the increase of K⁺, Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, SO ₄ ²⁻ and HCO ₃ ⁻ . Laboratory experiments under field conditions showed: the dissolution sequence of minerals quantitatively is quartz>potassium feldspar>albite, and the main change of clay minerals is the conversion of kaolinite to analcime. Mass balance calculation indicated during the process of steam stimulation, large quantities of analcime are precipitated with the dissolution of large amounts of quartz, kaolinite, potassium feldspar, and CO₂. These results correlated very well with the experimental results. The calculated results of Liaohe Shuguang Oil Field showed that during the steam stimulation for viscous crude oil, the amounts of minerals dissolved (precipitated) are huge. To control the clogging of pore spaces of oil reservoirs, increased study of water–rock interaction is needed.     

'Dad says I'm tied to a shooting star!' Grounding (research on) British expatriate belonging

This paper analyses one British woman's everyday practices of belonging as she negotiates expatriate life in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. In doing so, it responds to widespread calls to ground research on processes of transnationalism and diaspora by drawing on 18 months of ethnographic research and adopting a three-stranded analytical framework to reflect on the significance of domesticity, intimacy and foreignness in expatriate belonging. The author focuses on a single research subject to draw attention to a particular British expatriate experience otherwise neglected in migration research and the paper resonates with theoretical literatures aiming to challenge the binary divisions of geographies of belonging, including attachment/detachment.     

Reply to comment by Y. Park and J.-H. Ree on 'Chemical remagnetization of the Upper Carboniferous-Lower Triassic Pyeongan Supergroup in the Jeongseon area, Korea: fluid migration through the Ogcheon Fold Belt'

In their comment, Park & Ree have raised several points against the interpretation by Park et al. , and argued that the remagnetization in the Jeongseon area was caused by the thermal effects of a Late Cretaceous pluton and/or associated short-range hydrothermal fluids, rather than by long-range fluids advocated by us.
We disagree with most points raised by Park & Ree and we make a case that these are invalid because of what we believe is incorrect geologic evidence. Hence, our model—that the fluids causing the chemical remagnetization might migrate through the fault system within the Ogcheon Fold Belt—is the most plausible scenario. We recognize that our model needs to be tested in a future study and we welcome new interpretations for or against our model based on reliable geologic or geophysical data.