Natural Fractures

About this area. This area of NaturalFractures.com is a directory of technical presentations about the geology of natural rock fractures and fractured hydrocarbon reservoirs. Think of it as a free on-line course in fractured reservoir geology.

This material will interest:

Geologists, engineers and technical managers working in the oil & gas, environmental protection, groundwater, geotechnical and mining industries.
Materials scientists & engineers interested in fractography and fracture mechanics. I guarantee you'll love the photos and will get a different perspective on fracturing. Check out some of the fracture mechanics.
Interested laymen, students and random web surfers will find that most presentations have links that open a window with some token scraps of background material for non-technical folks. I hope it helps. I'm open to suggestions.

Note: Presentations listed in gray text aren't up yet, but they will be posted relatively soon. Please check back often and pester me if you are anxious about a particular topic.

1. GEOLOGY OF NATURAL FRACTURES AND SEAL FAILURE

1.1. Natural fracture types

1.1.1. Natural fracture types

1.1.2. Fracture orientations relative to
orientations of principal stresses

1.1.3. Regional fracture orientations

1.1.4. Basic fault & fault-slip nomenclature

1.1.5. Fracture identification flowchart

1.2. Fracture mechanics, hydrocarbon migration & seal failure

1.2.2. How joints form

1.3. Fracturing in response to folding

1.3.1. Introduction

1.3.2. Extensional fault-bend folding: Implications for localized fracturing

1.3.3. Contractional fault-bend folding: Implications for localized fracturing

1.3.4. Localized fracturing during wrench faulting

1.3.5. Using structural models

1.4. Fracture surfaces and shapes

2. PHOTOS AND IMAGE LOG EXAMPLES

3. BREAKOUTS, INDUCED FRACTURES, AND PRESENT-DAY EARTH STRESS

3.1. Breakouts and induced fracture basics: Don't make these common mistakes!

4. IMAGE LOG DATA

5. IMAGE LOG ANALYSIS

5.3. Distinguishing natural from induced fractures in image logs

5.4. Identifying natural fracture types in image logs

6. FRACTURED CORE ANALYSIS

7. OTHER TECHNOLOGIES FOR FRACTURE INVESTIGATIONS

8. MAKING SENSE OF YOUR DATA

8.3. Fracture density and property statistics: A simple approach

8.6. Paleostress analysis

9. DOING SOMETHING PROFITABLE WITH WHAT YOU'VE LEARNED ABOUT THE RESERVOIR

9.4. Development II: Determining optimum drilling directions

9.5. Reservoir modeling

10. EXAMPLE STUDIES

11. REFERENCES