AFES Meeting
February 2014
Station Hotel, Guild Street
Wednesday 12th February 2013, 6.00 PM for 6.30pm
Rocks, Space and Connectivity
– an Overview of Petrophysical
Research at the University of
Aberdeen
Joyce Neilson
Co authors: Dave Healy, Abdullah Awdal, Natalie Farrell, Thomas Haines, Emma Michie and Liliana Vargas Meleza
Abstract:
Over the past few years, AFES has generously supported petrophysical research at the University of Aberdeen by providing
grants to help purchase equipment and has also given bursaries to individual students. Additional funding for equipment has been
provided by NERC, BG, Total and the University of Aberdeen.
A Petrophysics Laboratory has been developed by Dr Dave Healy which has the capability to analyse porosity, permeability,
ultrasonic velocity (both Vp and Vs) under dry, and in the near future, fluid-saturated conditions. A further laboratory has been
developed for mercury injection porosimetry analyses (£10,000). A new Optics Laboratory has been developed by Dr Joyce
Neilson which includes new optical microscopy equipment, again partly funded by AFES (£9,000). These laboratories and this
equipment play a key role in several ongoing petrophysical research projects.
A variety of research topics are being undertaken including:
Studying the effect that facies has on fault and fracture patterns in carbonates and how the petrophysics of these rocks alter
around those zones.
Studying how the geometry of pores around faults in sandstones will affect the susceptibility of a fault to reactivation during
increases in pore fluid pressure.
The quantification of the seismic velocity anisotropy caused by the mylonitic deformation of evaporites and estimation of the
effects of such anisotropy on the seismic response by forward seismic modelling.
Brief highlights of these projects will be presented along with details of the laboratories themselves.
Biography: Joyce Neilson is currently a Lecturer on Carbonates and Petroleum Geology at the University of Aberdeen. Joyce
graduated with a B.Sc. from the University of Aberdeen in 1984 and went on to do a Ph.D. at Imperial College completing it in
1987. Following this, she joined BP Research where she worked on carbonate reservoir quality and prediction until 1991. Since
then she has worked as an independent consultant, specialising in the sedimentology and reservoir quality of carbonate
reservoirs worldwide combining it with an honorary lectureship at the University of Aberdeen. Since 2005, she has increased her
academic role at the University of Aberdeen and her current research interests include the effects of diagenesis and
faulting/fracturing on reservoir quality in carbonates. She is also currently Secretary of the Petroleum Group, Geological Society
of London.
Aberdeen Formation Evaluation Society is a registered Scottish Charity. Charity number SC039526.