Applied Biostratigraphy: A Critical Tool for Subsurface Prediction and Characterisation

Course Description

The subsurface is a hugely valuable host of resources and requires characterisation. Biostratigraphy is vital for understanding and characterising the subsurface and plays a role at all scales from global, through regional and basin-scales, to prospects, and individual assets. 

The course will introduce the fundamental concepts for subsurface characterisation that biostratigraphy contributes – principally correlation and environmental determination – and how these are integrated under the umbrella of sequence stratigraphy. The predictive power of the latter is emphasised and demonstrated.

 Similar principles are also demonstrated in operational situations such as casing-point/TD determinations and well steering. 

Relevance to the energy transition is emphasised. 

Course Objectives:

Upon completion of the course, participants will have knowledge of:

-How biostratigraphy "works" from first principles;

-How these principles are applied, at various scales, to better understand the subsurface;

-How these techniques can be used in a predictive sense through the application of sequence (bio)stratigraphy;

-How the techniques are used at an operational level to enhance outcomes economically, technically and safely;

-Upon completion of the course participants will be able to recommend biostratigraphy as appropriate as part of subsurface studies and engage with expert biostratigraphers to ensure successful outcomes.  

Course Outline: 

Introduction 

- The need for plausible subsurface characterisation;

- Contribution of biostratigraphy.

The Foundations of Applied Biostratigraphy 

- Correlation (with practical exercise);

-Paleoenvironment.

Organising the Subsurface

- Sequence (bio)stratigraphy: why, what and how?;

- Prediction: carbonates of the Arabian Plate;

- Exercise: identifying a new play concept by recognising sea-level changes and facies shifts with high-resolution correlation.

- Sequence (bio)stratigraphy in detail: clastics of the Gulf of Mexico;

- Exercise: breaking a well down into sequences and systems tracts by identifying flooding surfaces and sequence boundaries using only biostratigraphic data together with statistics and pattern recognition. The depositional history of the well is evaluated, expanding into a basin-wide synthesis.

 Computational/digital Biostratigraphy

- Databases, dictionaries, look-ups, probabilities and AI/ML.

 Operational Uses 

- Biostratigraphy at wellsite: "geostopping" and "biosteering";

- Exercise: be a wellsite biostratigrapher for "a day" and steer a horizontal well.

The Energy Transition

- Where does applied biostratigraphy go from here?;

- Civil engineering, geothermal, CCUS, aquifers.

Participant’s Profile:

The course is designed for anyone studying or working on the subsurface that requires an understanding of the way the subsurface can be characterised and predicted at a variety of scales; Geoscientists/geoengineers at post-graduate level (M.Sc., Ph.D.) and early/mid-career professionals. 

A general background in the broad geosciences is useful but not essential.

No prior knowledge of biostratigraphy (or palaeontology) is required.

Prerequisites:

A general background in the broad geosciences is useful but not essential.

About the Instructors:

Matt Wakefield 

Matt Wakefield has been involved in the energy industry for over 30 years. Following his Ph.D. (Jurassic Ostracods) Matt was initially retrained as an exploration geologist/geochemist and basin modeller, before helping develop a biostratigraphy team within BG Group. There he provided advice across their entire portfolio covering project planning, management, delivery, and additional interpretation of biostratigraphical and chemostratigraphical data from external consultants. Matt has worked Devonian through Pleistocene globally for new ventures, exploration, field appraisal, development and management including well-site biostratigraphy. 

Matt was involved in various industrially funded research projects developing biostratigraphical interpretation software, palynofacies models in turbidites and supervised two M.Sc. and four Ph.D. students. He has provided internal training courses for both geoscientists (biostratigraphy) and non-geoscientists (Upstream Basics; a three-day classroom and field-based course for non-geoscience staff introducing them to exploration, development and production geosciences). 

Matt left BG following the takeover by Shell and set up his own consultancy. He has taught a one-day Applied Biostratigraphy course for several independent E&P companies. 

Matt was Chair of the Education Trust, a separate charity within The Micropalaeontological Society (2013-25) that has provided funding for 14 M.Sc. students and over 20 small grants to enable post-graduates to attend week long biostratigraphy courses. He is an active member of the Geological Society (London) Stratigraphy Commission.

Mike Bidgood 

Mike Bidgood has been an applied biostratigrapher for over 40 years, mostly as an independent consultant working primarily in the Energy industry. During this time he has worked both on office-based analytical studies and in various operational settings at wellsite including stratigraphic monitoring of exploration wells, picking casing points and “biosteering” horizontal wells. He worked in the international service sector based in Jakarta and Aberdeen, initially for Gearhart GeoConsultants Ltd. before setting up GSS Geoscience in Aberdeen in 1993. Since then, he has worked for numerous clients including independent, major/supermajor and national oil companies on a variety of topics. His speciality is the use of biostratigraphic data in basin screening and asset analysis, within the framework of sequence stratigraphy. 

In 2010 Mike subcontracted extensively to Neftex Petroleum Consultants Ltd. and was involved in the development of their Biostratigraphy Module and its integration with their “Global Earth Model” – a multi-regional sequence model for the Phanerozoic with sequence surfaces calibrated by biostratigraphy, which formed the framework of their entire product suite. He was also involved in mentoring their (predominantly) junior and early-career staff and working on internal biostratigraphic projects to assist in sequence analysis. Acquired by Halliburton in 2015, Mike continued to subcontract to the company until the Covid lockdown of 2020.

Since the early 2000s Mike has also been involved in teaching Applied Biostratigraphy in places as diverse as the UK, Venezuela, Brunei and Thailand at post-graduate and company level.

Post-lockdown Mike’s focus has been on research into enhancing the value of biostratigraphy – with particular emphasis on using larger benthic foraminifera – to Mesozoic sediments globally. He has co-published numerous articles on that topic.

Mike Simmons

Mike Simmons has been an energy industry geoscientist for over 40 years. Following his PhD on the Cretaceous carbonates of Oman, he worked for an operator (BP), in academia (at Aberdeen and Cambridge universities), and in the service sector (co-director of Neftex Petroleum Consultants Ltd, currently Technology Fellow for Geosciences and Energy Transition at Halliburton).  His main research interests are applied stratigraphy, the geology of the Tethyan region, and the energy transition. He works on eustasy in the geological record; regional stratigraphy and petroleum geology, specifically the Middle East and Black Sea regions; applied biostratigraphy; and the history and future of geology. He has a particular research interest in Cretaceous larger benthic foraminifera and their utility in biostratigraphy. His current focus is the geologically plausible characterisation of the subsurface for all aspects of the energy transition. He is a Visiting Professor at the University of London and Scientific Research Associate of the Natural History Museum, London. He has over 200 publications to his name, including several books, and regularly presents to industry, at conferences, and at universities. 

Emma Sheldon 

Emma Sheldon is a biostratigrapher (specialising in calcareous nannofossils, foraminifera and diatoms) at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) with 30 years of industry engagement, the majority of which is connected with the energy industry. Her expertise is in the North Sea and adjacent areas of the NW European Continental Shelf including the North Atlantic Margin (e.g. onshore and offshore Greenland). 

Her geological speciality focusses on carbonate and clastic sediments from the Cretaceous to the Pleistocene of the North Sea and Greenland, in particular Lower and Upper Cretaceous (Cromer Knoll and Chalk Group) chalk reservoirs and Cenozoic sections ascribed to the North Sea Groups.

She collaborates closely with geophysicists and sedimentologists in multi-disciplinary teams on large industry funded, multi-client projects, and also independently or in smaller groups on specialist single well / smaller tasks. As well as undertaking lab-based sample preparation and analysis, she also has extensive experience of wellsite work in Denmark, Norway and Holland. 

Emma has taught on Applied Biostratigraphy courses at universities in Denmark, Germany and the UK, and has co-supervised students at BSc, MSc and PhD level.