Geothermal Rock Catalogue: A Geological Guide for Geothermal Exploration
Joiner Consultants and Dr Salvatore Morano have put together a NEW Geothermal Rock Catalogue.
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The Catalogue has been constructed to analyse the main geological controls on geothermal plays. Legacy tabulated data (public domain) on geothermal reservoirs from all around the world has been compiled.
New TS/SEM data on potential geothermal rock types and minerals has also been collected and a NEW Geothermal Rock Typing classification scheme has been created. All methodologies are explained in detail in the catalogue. The extensive catalogue of extracted legacy data has been compiled by geothermal region/area/country in alphabetic order. All of the legacy data catalogued (Open Energy Information, public domain) has been cross checked regarding geological settings and data.
The idea is that companies may utilize information such as Temperature, MW, chemistry of fluids, depth of reservoirs, as analog data for geothermal reservoirs. The catalogue is comprised of TS geothermal plates with examples of geothermal host rocks and their mineralogy (e.g. typical hydrothermal minerals in geothermal fields).
In addition, the TS/SEM descriptions provide information on the main rock-types and minerals of geothermal reservoirs and a rock-typing scheme created as already mentioned. Both the legacy and new data can be used as analog data for current or future geothermal exploration.
Rock- Typing is utlized in the oil industry to provide petrophysical characterization of cuttings and other rock material in uncored reservoir intervals, where no CA data is available
The aims of this catalogue is to:
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Create a Rock Typing Catalogue containing petrographic and petrophysical data on sandstone and carbonate rock-types, which can be utilized as analogue data for exploration targets in uncored reservoir intervals;
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Define single-well or multi-well rock-types and their petrophysical properties;
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Integrate/calibrate wireline logs results with TS/rock typing data.
Two-hundred twelve samples from outcrops and wells of different Formations (sandstones and carbonates), located in the Northern & Central Kenya Rift basins, Southern Apennines of Italy, Southern Alps (Dolomites) of Italy, Namibia, UK and Oman have been submitted to rock typing analysis, to characterize the relationship between petrographic features and petrophysical properties.
The application of this rock typing and particularly in this catalogue to formation evaluation, is a powerful tool to estimate whether a unit will flow and to decide to continue drilling or complete a well in other cases. It is used to define rock types and petrophysical properties at field scale, formation scale, regional scale and use analogues for evaluation exploration wells where there is little or no data.
