7 minute read
LARAC Activities: Geophysics for Today and Tomorrow
LARAC web-panel series: The current state of mining geophysics in Latin America
Miguel Bosch / Jose Arce / Jeremy Barrett / Telma Aisengart / Annabella Betancourt / Ana Curcio
Advertisement
As part of the broader line of webinars, Geophysics for Today and Tomorrow, the Latin American Regional Advisory Committee is organizing a series of web-panels focused on the current state of applied geophysics in Latin America, with emphasis in non-oil production related activities. The objective is to inform on the state of the techniques and business, allow the presentation of different points of view, and generate discussion on the topic. For this purpose, the web panels include presentations of three experts having professional practice in the region, followed by questions and discussion.
The first panel, dedicated to the topic of Mining Geophysics, was presented on Friday 10th December. We were grateful to have the presentations by Jose Arce, Jeremy Barrett and Telma Aisengard, followed by questions and panel discussions. Jose is member of various SEG committees, has been regional Vice President and participated in various committees for the Society of Economic Geologists and was president of the Peruvian Geological Society and is current manager of Arce Geofísicos. Jeremy, currently based on Chile, has a long career in the exploration of mineral resources in Latin America, and is manager of Southern Rock Geophysics. Telma, based on Brazil, has a wide experience in potential field data interpretation applied to mining and oil related projects in the region.
Jose Arce explained the challenges of the activity in the region, including the public perception. As in other extractive industries, mining activities in the region are commonly under attack due to lack of knowledge in the general public. It is true that any human activity will cause an impact to the environment, but current regulated mining activities have such high standards that minimize that impact considerably. Our dependence on mining for our everyday life is often not fully realized. All our activities today use materials extracted from the Earth.
Concerning the required technology, Jose considers that mining geophysics is becoming more critical in the discovery process as most deposits close to surface have already been discovered. Techniques with deeper reach and higher quality instrumentation, accompanied by a new generation of sensors permit us to work in sensitivity levels in our measurements not thought possible in the recent past. New geophysical applications are also being developed and improved to be applied from automated drone platforms, reducing our footprint in the field, and extending our reach into areas that are harder to explore.
Jeremy Barrett described the relevance of the Latin American mining sector in the global scene. The Latin America region has a long established and globally important mining industry. This is supported by just over a quarter of the world’s exploration budget. Despite a paucity of quantitative information on expenditure in geophysics, as practitioners we see a healthy level of activity in the geophysics sector with an excellent level of expertise, technology and application. The science is driven forward with numerous and vibrant R&D projects in the region, although there is still a tendency to look outside of the region for solutions, both in terms of hardware and software. As evidenced in the oil and gas sector, a significantly skewed R&D risk profile appears to exist between mining/exploration companies and their service providers with the latter risking significantly
larger proportions of revenue despite usually having less capacity to absorb this financial risk. The region has excellent geophysicists and the use of geophysics is at the cutting edge, but in general it punches below its weight on the international scene. Greater confidence is required to share our region’s geophysics with the wider world.
Telma discussed the open technological challenges in the mining geosciences regarding integration and modeling automatization, which point in the same direction as in other engineering activities. She reinforced the need to have a systemic view by using all available data and information and thinking about the Mineral Systems, talked about the digital transformation that was already in course but was accelerated by the pandemic, the need to have and appropriate data management in place in order to be able to access and use all data and by having access be able to integrate them all and use Machine Learning techniques to extract more value from them. Telma also talked about the importance of having sustainable mining with attention to the environmental and social impacts of this activity that is essential to support the technology that we rely on. She also brought some numbers from the region that show its importance in the global market.
This interesting discussion can be listened at the SEG link, https://seg.org/Events/SEG-Live/session/thecurrent-state-of-mining-geophysics-in-latin-america .
We are currently planning our next web-panel on the topic of underground water prospection.
Special announcement
The SEG LARAC is pleased to inform our readers that it is planning to launch a special section of our quarterly newsletter that is dedicated to our professional community. We are welcoming articles, reviews and opinions on a topic of current interest specifically with a Latin American focus. Contributions will be informally reviewed by the editorial team of the SEG LARAC Newsletter prior to publication. In addition, the special section will provide authors an opportunity to showcase news or updates on current research, ongoing projects within their university, company or country, respectively.
The main idea of the column is to provide a synopsis of work with some preliminary results. Submission format is an article of no more than 500 words with a maximum of two (2) pictures, figures or charts that are fully captioned. A short biography and picture of the author is required.
We encourage you to utilize the opportunity to submit and take advantage of publicity that could be derived. Please send your contributions to Terrell Dhanpaul (terrdhan@gmail.com) and Ana Curcio (anitacurcio@gmail.com) and copy Laurie Whitesell (lwhitesell@seg.org) and SEGLARACnewsletter@gmail.com.
We eagerly look forward to receiving your articles to make this a reality for the next edition, which will be published in July.
Regards,
Terrell Dhanpaul
Technical Sub-Committee, SEG LARAC
Send you article to be published in the next issue of the SEG LA RAC Newsletter
Initiating the 2021 year with the Geophysics for Today and Tomorrow Professional Edition, Professor Carlos Torres-Verdin, J ames J enings Memor ial Endowed Chair in Petroluem and Geosystem Engineering from University of Texas at Austin Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering gathered the interest of Professionals and Students with a relevant topic about Well Log Analysis to Improve Rock Physics in Unconventional Fields. During his webinar Professor Torres-Verdin described and highlighted the role played by borehole geophysical measurements in the assessment of compositional and mechanical properties of organicrich shales and mudrocks, setting emphasis on rock properties, which have a dominant impact on fluid production via hydrofacturing; contextual geological and spatial information; and methods commonly used for measurement assimilation and interpretation.
Links to view this webinar will be included in the SEG Live library which can be accessed free of charge.
Student Edition Seismic Attributes
Introduction to Seismic Attributes
A seismic attribute is any measure of seismic data that helps us visually enhance or quantify features of interpretation interest. A good seismic attribute is either directly sensitive to the desired geologic feature or reservoir property of interest, or allows us to define the structural or depositional environment and thereby enables us to infer features or properties of interest. First introduced in the early 1970s, seismic attributes are now used widely for lithological and petrophysical prediction of reservoir properties. Karen Leopoldino’s webinar provided an introduction to seismic attributes based on Dr. Marfurt's seismic attributes material.
Geometric Seismic Attributes
Seismic attributes fall into two broad categories: those helpful in the quantification of morphological components of seismic data and those helpful in the quantification of the reflectivity component of seismic data.
Rafael Pires-Lima’s webinar provided a summary of the morphological attributes, called geometric attributes, that help us extract information on reflector dip, azimuth, and termination. Such morphological features can then be related to faults, channels, salt diapirs, and karstic features. This talk is also based on Dr. Marfurt's seismic attributes material.
