Volume 48 Number 8 April, 2018 Page 1 A L A S K A G E O L O G Y Alaska Geological Society Newsletter of the A L A S K A G E O L O G I C A L S O C I E T Y S G A Pikka-Horseshoe, Willow and Smith Bay: Unraveling Three New Discoveries with Publicly Available Data Josef Chmielowski Alaska Division of Oil & Gas, Anchorage, AK [email protected]In the last few years, three new discoveries have been announced in the lower Brookian Sequence on the North Slope: Pikka-Horseshoe, Willow and Smith Bay. These exciting prospects and the Nanushuk and Torok Formation plays that host them are at varying stages of exploration maturity. Plans for the 2018 winter activity season call for significant delineation drilling in both the Pikka-Horseshoe and Willow trends. Utilizing only pub- licly available data, it is possible to ascertain how these discoveries are related, how they differ, and why explo- ration drilling permits are targeting certain locations. Under the State of Alaska’s tax credit program, the Department of Natural Resources has recently released multiple 2D and 3D seismic datasets through the Alaska Geologic Materials Center. These datasets are available to industry at steeply discounted cost, and free-of-charge to qualifying research, education, and governmental institutions. One such dataset, the high quality Nanuq South 3D, covers the southern half of the Pikka-Horseshoe discovery. In addition, the survey includes the region where the Stony Hill 1/1A and Putu 2/2A exploration wells are permitted for drilling this winter season. Brookian clinoforms are clear in seismic cross section, comprising the Nanushuk topsets and their time-equivalent Torok foresets and bottomsets. Basic 3D amplitude extractions highlight prospective areas and vintage 2D seismic lines tie together these discoveries while also providing an understanding of the regional geological system. AGS Luncheon Date & Time: Tuesday, April 24, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm Program: Pikka-Horseshoe, Willow and Smith Bay: Unraveling three new discoveries with publicly available data Speaker: Josef Chmielowski, Alaska Division of Oil & Gas, Anchorage, AK Place: BP Energy Center, 1014 Energy Court, Anchorage, AK Reservations: Make your reservation before noon Friday, April 20, 2018 Cost: Seminar is free (catered lunches are no longer available) Fell free to bring your own brown-bag lunch For more information call (907) 854-2363 or visit the AGS website: http://www.alaskageology.org
Transcript
Volume 48 Number 8 April, 2018 Page 1
ALA SKA GE OLOGY
Alaska Geological SocietyNewsletter of the
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Pikka-Horseshoe, Willow and Smith Bay: Unraveling Three New Discoveries with Publicly
In the last few years, three new discoveries have been announced in the lower Brookian Sequence on the North Slope: Pikka-Horseshoe, Willow and Smith Bay. These exciting prospects and the Nanushuk and Torok Formation plays that host them are at varying stages of exploration maturity. Plans for the 2018 winter activity season call for significant delineation drilling in both the Pikka-Horseshoe and Willow trends. Utilizing only pub-licly available data, it is possible to ascertain how these discoveries are related, how they differ, and why explo-ration drilling permits are targeting certain locations.
Under the State of Alaska’s tax credit program, the Department of Natural Resources has recently released multiple 2D and 3D seismic datasets through the Alaska Geologic Materials Center. These datasets are available to industry at steeply discounted cost, and free-of-charge to qualifying research, education, and governmental institutions. One such dataset, the high quality Nanuq South 3D, covers the southern half of the Pikka-Horseshoe discovery. In addition, the survey includes the region where the Stony Hill 1/1A and Putu 2/2A exploration wells are permitted for drilling this winter season. Brookian clinoforms are clear in seismic cross section, comprising the Nanushuk topsets and their time-equivalent Torok foresets and bottomsets. Basic 3D amplitude extractions highlight prospective areas and vintage 2D seismic lines tie together these discoveries while also providing an understanding of the regional geological system.
AGS LuncheonDate & Time: Tuesday, April 24, 11:30 am – 1:00 pmProgram: Pikka-Horseshoe, Willow and Smith Bay: Unraveling three new discoveries with
publicly available data Speaker: Josef Chmielowski, Alaska Division of Oil & Gas, Anchorage, AKPlace: BP Energy Center, 1014 Energy Court, Anchorage, AKReservations: Make your reservation before noon Friday, April 20, 2018Cost: Seminar is free (catered lunches are no longer available)
Fell free to bring your own brown-bag lunchFor more information call (907) 854-2363 or visit the AGS website: http://www.alaskageology.org
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Dip-oriented seismic section through the Nanuq South 3D seismic tax credit survey a few miles north of the Horse-shoe 1 and 1A discoveries drilled in 2017. Lower Brookian clinoforms are clearly visible, consisting of Nanushuk topsets and Torok foresets/bottomsets. The Stony Hill 1 and 1A exploration wells are shown schematically, based on permitted surface and bottom-hole coordinates, but target depths and the deviated wellbore trajectory are un-known. The legacy Itkillik River Unit #1 well at right penetrated Top Nanushuk at approximately -4,243 ft subsea
Map view of the Nanushuk 3 horizon two-way time structure in-dicating the shelf-slope break in yellow. Interpretation picked on a 5X5 grid and two-way time range is 0.95 to 1.45 seconds.
Map view of a far stack RMS amplitude extraction (+20ms offset, 60ms window). Green colors indicate higher relative amplitudes versus the surrounding blue colors. The dotted line indicates the Pikka-Horseshoe discovery while the Stony Hill and Putu per-mitted surface locations correspond with amplitude anomalies.
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From the President’s Desk:Please help me thank Art Banet for stepping up and volunteering to become the President- Elect on this year’s AGS board. He will assume the AGS Presidency next year. That was a big help for me in my succession plan-ning for next year. However, I still have two officer positions to fill for next year’s board. I still need someone for the President-Elect and Vice President positions for next year. The president-elect will assume the presidency during the 2019-20 fiscal year, The Vice President organizes the speaker program and the Spring Tech Confer-ence. It is a challenging but rewarding role to fill. Anyone thinking they are up for a challenge, please be sure to contact me ASAP as the spring election should be held at either the April or May lunch time meeting.
We are also still looking for interesting talks and poster papers for the April 20th Tech Conference, which is being held at UAA. We will have the registration link for the conference on the AGS website home page soon so please be sure to check back and register starting in early April. The registration fee is $65 for professionals and $5 for students. Hope to see you there.
About the Speaker:Joe Chmielowski was born and raised in Alaska. He earned a BA in physics and a BS in geology from Rutgers College in New Jersey. He received an MS in geophysics from the University of Arizona, Tucson for his work uti-lizing earthquake seismology to image the largest active magma body in the world (about 15 kilometers beneath the Andean Altiplano in Bolivia).
In 1999, he returned to Alaska as an interpretation geophysicist for BP. He has worked in a variety of BP roles including: slope-wide exploration, Prudhoe Bay light oil production, Milne Point viscous oil appraisal & develop-ment, business strategy, Egypt gas exploration (cut short due to the Arab Spring revolution) and the Appraisal Team Lead for Ugnu Heavy Oil and the Liberty offshore development. In 2016, Joe joined the State of Alaska, Division of Oil & Gas with a focus on Western North Slope exploration and new developments.
The Alaska Geological Society will be hosting a one-day technical conference on topics related to the ge-ology of Alaska. The 2018 conference will be held at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, ConocoPhillips Integrated Science Building, on Friday, April 20th. Talks will include topics such as basin stratigraphy and interpretation, North Slope hydrocarbon reservoirs, tectonics, mineral resources, geo-hazards and regional geological mapping.
For more information visit the AGS website: http://www.alaskageology.org/techconference2018.html
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Folded Kamishak Formation strata in the proximal hangingwall of the Bruin Bay fault near Con-tact Point, lower Cook Inlet. Much like textbook clay models, the layer-cake appearance created by alternating marble (light) and metapelite (dark) banding highlight contractional faulting in the antiformal axis that help alleviate the space problem created by tight folding of its core. Geologist for scale.
My Pet Rock Robert J Gillis Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys
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2018 AGS Scholarship Awards2018 Scholarship committee members: Sue Karl, Chair Pete Barker Ken Helmold Amanda Lanik Game McGimsey Marion Richter Pam Richter Diane Shellenbaum
Don Richter Memorial Scholarship:
Patrick Manselle: MS candidate, Kansas State University Project: Geochemical and petrologic characterization of Cretaceous volcanic rocks from the Chisana For-mation, Alaska: constraints on the Accretion of the Wrangellia composite terrane
Alaska Geological Society Scholarships:
Cooper Fasulo: MS candidate, Purdue University Project: Basin analysis and detrital zircon geochronology of the Jurassic-Cretaceous Nutzotin basin, east-ern Alaska Range: implications for collision and strike-slip displacement in the NW cordillera
Nathan Graham: PhD candidate, University of Alaska, Fairbanks Project: Linking current volcanic activity to the explosive 1929 eruption of Mount Gareloi, Alaska, through petrology and volatile chemistry
Carl Hoiland: PhD candidate, Stanford University Project: Constraining the age and tectonic setting of the Koyukuk arc terrane, Alaska, with implications for Mesozoic arc-continent collision
Juan Ochoa-Chavez: PhD candidate, University of Texas, El Paso Project: Seismic analysis of the 30 July 1972 Sitka earthquake aftershocks
Sydney Souza: BS candidate, University of Alaska, Anchorage Project: Age and timing of magmatism in the Okanagen Range batholith
Valerie Wasser: MS candidate, University of Alaska, Fairbanks roject: Magma compressibility of the Augustine 2006 eruption
Pacific Section AAPG Scholarship:
Patrick Terhune: MS candidate, University of Alaska, Fairbanks Project: Cenozoic topographic development history of the Talkeetna Mountains: using thermochronology to determine the timing of Yakutat flat-slab-related deformation
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END OF PART 2 OF 2
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Additional Ways to Support AGS
Again, this year through the Pick.Click.Give program you can make a donation to the Alaska Geological Society! You will see the Pick.Click.Give option when you go online to apply for your dividend. If you’ve already submitted your application, you can go back and add AGS to your Pick.Click.Give selection. From the PFD home page http://www.pfd.state.ak.us/, select the green “Add or Change Your Pick.Click.Give. Donation” button. For more information on the program go to: www.pickclickgive.org.
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Alaska Geological Calendar of EventsDate Time Organization Event Location
Jan 18 2018
11:45am AGS/AMA Dr. George Case, USGS. ”The Alaska Resource Data File (ARDF): More than just a database”.
BP Energy Center, Anchorage
Feb 20 2018
11:45am AGS Dr. Jeff Benowitz, UAF “Cenozoic off-set history of the Denali Fault system”
BP Energy Center, Anchorage
March 1 2018
4:00pm – 5:00pm
UAA Samual Zipper, University of Victoria “Water Science for the Anthropocene: Eco-hydrological feedbacks following land cover change”.
Social Science Bldg. 118 UAA, Anchorage
March 8 2018
11:45am GSA Keith Millis, SAExploration “Compressive seismic imaging” ConocoPhillips, Anchorage
March 15 2018
11:45 am AAEP Brad Meiklejohn, Conservation Fund “Removal of the Lower Eklutna River Dam”
BP Energy Center, Anchorage
March 20 2018
11:45am AGS Trystan Herriott, State of Alaska “Sequence-stratigraphic framework of the Middle Jurassic Chinitna Formation, Cook Inlet forearc basin, south-central Alaska”.
BP Energy Center, Anchorage
March 26 - 31
AMA Alaska Miners Association. Biennial Conventionhttps://alma.memberclicks.net/2018-convention
Carlson Center,Fairbanks
April 6 2018
11:45am UAA Bob Loeffler, ISER “Water Quality Issues and Control in Mining”
11:45am AAEP Andy Ramey, USGS “Lessons learned from research and surveillance directed at highly pathogenic influenza A virus-es in wild birds inhabiting North America.”
BP Energy Center, Anchorage
April 17 2018
5:00pm AWC Anchorage Waterways Council Annual Meeting Resolution Brewery
April 20 2018
9:00am – 4:00pm
AGS AGS Spring Technical ConferenceABSTRACTS DUE MARCH 15!
BP Energy Center, Anchorage
April 20 2018
11:45am UAA Susan Wilson, 3rd Rock Consulting LLC “Ground Tempera-ture monitoring”.
Engineering Bldg. Rm. 211, UAA, Anchorage
April 242018
11:45am AGS Joe Chmielowski State of Alaska DOG “Pikka-Horseshoe, Willow and Smith Bay (Unraveling Three New Discoveries with Publicly Available Data)
BP Energy Center, Anchorage
May 10 2018
11:45am GSA Dr. William Symes, Rice University 2018 SEG Distinguished Lecturer.
ConocoPhillips, Anchorage
May 15 2-18
11:45am AGS Dr. Erin Shea, University of Alaska, Anchorage BP Energy Center, Anchorage
May 20 – 23, 2018
AAPG AAPG Annual Convention & Exhibition Salt Lake City, Utah
AMA: Alaska Miners Association; AGS: Alaska Geological Society: GSA: Geophysical Society of AlaskaAAEP: Alaska Association of Environmental Professionals; SPE Society of Petroleum Engineers; UAA University of Alaska Anchorage.NEW! UAA Geological Science Department Weekly seminars: https://www.uaa.alaska.edu/academics/college-of-arts-and-sciences/departments/geology/seminar.cshtml
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Membership NoteMembership renewal is November 1
Annual dues are:Full member - $25
Student member - $5Lifetime membership - $200
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Volume 48 Number 8 April, 2018 Page 18
slb.com/Techlog
Only the Techlog* wellbore software platform brings all of your wellbore-centric data together for better decisions—from exploration to development. With its advanced acoustics, geomechanics, and complex lithology solver, the Techlog platform improves formation evaluation in every well. This advanced technology enhances characterization and increases understanding of drilling hazards— even in the most challenging reservoirs.
The Alaska Geological Society, Inc. P.O. Box 101288
Anchorage AK 99510 On the web at: http://www.alaskageology.org
The Alaska Geological Society is an organization which seeks to promote interest in and understanding of Geology and the related Earth Sciences, and to provide a common organization for those individuals interested in geology and the related earth sciences.This newsletter is the monthly (September-May) publication of the Alaska Geological Society, Inc. 300± newsletters delivered eletronically per month.
Kenneth P. Helmold (Editor) Alaska Geological Society, Inc.
MEMBERSHIP INFORMATIONAGS annual memberships expire November 1. The annual membership fee is $25/year ($5 for students). You may download a membership application from the AGS website and return it at a luncheon meeting, or mail it to the address above.Contact membership coordintor Kirk Sherwood with changes or updates (e-mail: [email protected]; phone: 907-334-5337)All AGS publications are now available for on-line purchase on our website. Check to see the complete catalogue:
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Volume 48 Number 8 April, 2018 Page 20
2017 - 2018 Alaska Geological Society Board, Committees and Delegates
Title Name Phone e-mail AffiliationPresident Larry Smith 907-865-5803 [email protected] Brook Range Petroleum
