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- Volume 25, Issue 8, 2007
First Break - Volume 25, Issue 8, 2007
Volume 25, Issue 8, 2007
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BP review reveals slowing world energy consumption growth but increasing carbon emissions
By C. RühlAt the launch of the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2007, chief economist-designate Christof Rühl offered an interpretation of current trends based on the Review, highlights of which we publish here. Energy has very much been in the spotlight in recent years. One way or another, the reasons usually lead to the increase in prices and the acceleration in energy consumption growth we have witnessed over the last few years. Based on the data published in this year’s Statistical Review of World Energy, I will look at recent energy developments from two perspectives. I first look at medium term developments by comparing the last five years with earlier periods. Then I focus on what changed from the beginning of 2006 until now, and why.
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3D attributed models for addressing environmental and engineering geoscience problems in areas of urban regeneration – a case study in Glasgow, UK
Authors J. Merritt, A. Monaghan, D. Entwisle, A. Hughes, D. Campbell and M. BrowneJoanne Merritt, Alison Monaghan, David Entwisle, Andrew Hughes, Diarmad Campbell, and Mike Browne discuss how BGS modelling of environmental and engineering geoscience data is aiding Glasgow’s planners and developers in regenerating city land use. The City of Glasgow is situated on and around the lower floodplain and inner estuary of the River Clyde in the west of Scotland, UK. Glasgow’s urban hinterland once was one of Europe’s leading centres of heavy industry, and of ship building in particular. The industries were originally fed by locally mined coal and ironstone. In common with many European cities, the heavy industries declined and Glasgow was left with a legacy of industrial dereliction, widespread undermining, and extensive vacant and contaminated sites, some the infilled sites of clay pits and sand and gravel workings.
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Classification of remotely sensed imagery for surficial geological mapping in Canada’s North
Authors J. Harris, E. Grunsky and I. McMartinJeff Harris, Eric Grunsky, and Ian McMartin of the Geological Survey of Canada discuss the use of different modern remote sensing options to help in the production of near surface maps for resource identification in the remote north of Canada. Mapping in the North is an expensive proposition due to remoteness, lack of infrastructure, logistical problems, and the generally short mapping season. Remotely sensed data offers a useful source of information to the mapping geologist for not only updating existing geological maps but as a first order source of geological information in areas that have not been well-mapped. Needless to say areas that have not been mapped in detail comprise many areas of Canada’s North.
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Better technology and training needed for monitoring effect of seismic exploration on marine life
By R. ComptonRoss Compton of OceanEar, part of the UK-based WGP Group, explains the issues in developing mitigation measures to protect marine mammals from the possible but unproven impact of seismic survey operations. T he marine geophysical exploration industry is coming under increasing scrutiny and regulation due to growing public concern and emerging scientific evidence that underwater noise may impact upon marine mammal populations and other marine life. As a result, geophysical contractors have become accustomed to working under guidelines such as those issued by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) in the UK, which have been in place since the mid-1990s. These guidelines describe the personnel and procedures necessary to mitigate the effects of seismic exploration and other potentially disruptive offshore activities upon the marine biosphere. In certain areas, adherence to these guidelines is now mandatory.
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Inverse modelling of surface subsidence to better understand the Earth’s subsurface
Authors P.A. Fokker, A.G. Muntendam-Bos and I.C. KroonPeter A. Fokker, Annemarie G. Muntendam-Bos, and Ingrid C. Kroon show that with the use of a careful inversion scheme, the available knowledge on the geology or dynamics of a reservoir can be quantitatively constrained with subsidence observations. Surface subsidence can have major repercussions. A classic example is the seabed above the Ekofisk field, offshore Norway, where excessive subsidence made it necessary to raise the drilling platform by 6 m in the 1980s. On land, subsidence may significantly increase the risk of damage to buildings and infrastructure. But, there is more to say about subsidence. Observations of subsidence can also give us a better handle on the subsurface processes like compaction behaviour of a reservoir, and can tell us more about the reservoir itself: about undrained compartments or the strength of the aquifer. However, to get the information from subsidence data, you have to carefully follow an inversion procedure. This inversion exercise is a big challenge, in which all the available knowledge has to be used to the fullest possible extent. In this article we report on the work we have recently performed in this area.
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3D geological modelling of a carbonate shoal complex: reservoir analogue study using outcrop data
Authors T. Aigner, S. Braun, D. Palermo and W. BlendingerThe value of outcrop analogues is widely acknowledged for modelling the geometry of siliciclastic reservoirs (e.g., Flint and Bryant, 1993, Miall and Tyler, 1991). By contrast, quantitative data of carbonate bodies on reservoir scale are rather scarce. Also, there is only a relatively small number of investigations attempting a three-dimensional modelling of carbonate bodies (e.g., Kerans and Tinker, 1997, Grötsch and Mercadier, 1999). Qi et al. (2007) present a detailed investigation on stochastic modelling of oolite shoals similar to the present study. Outcrop analogue studies are currently widely carried out, notably for Middle East reservoirs (e.g., Immenhauser et al., 2004).
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Integration of outcrop with borehole data to improve fractured reservoir models
Authors G. Bertotti, J. Taal-van Koppen, T. Beek, S.M. Luthi and N. HardebolKnowledge of reservoir-scale fracture patterns is important to assess their physical properties (e.g., facture connectivity) and to constrain numerical simulations. This is particularly true in the case of distributed fractures which affect large volumes of rocks but cause deformations far below the seismic resolution. A common way to model reservoir scale fracture fields is to upscale borehole data (e.g., Rawnsley et al., 1997; Wu and Pollard, 2002). Knowledge from boreholes has spatial scales of 10-2 – 100 m and needs to be extrapolated by a few orders of magnitude to the scale of reservoirs, typically 101-103 m, using statistical methods (Fig. 1). This process, however, suffers from the limited ability of borehole data to sample fracture populations correctly (e.g., Peacock, 2006) and from the adequacy of the extrapolation procedure.
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Volumes & issues
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Volume 42 (2024)
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Volume 41 (2023)
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Volume 40 (2022)
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Volume 39 (2021)
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Volume 38 (2020)
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Volume 37 (2019)
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Volume 36 (2018)
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Volume 35 (2017)
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Volume 34 (2016)
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Volume 33 (2015)
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Volume 32 (2014)
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Volume 31 (2013)
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Volume 30 (2012)
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Volume 29 (2011)
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Volume 28 (2010)
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Volume 27 (2009)
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Volume 26 (2008)
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Volume 25 (2007)
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Volume 24 (2006)
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Volume 23 (2005)
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Volume 22 (2004)
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Volume 21 (2003)
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Volume 20 (2002)
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Volume 19 (2001)
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Volume 18 (2000)
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Volume 17 (1999)
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Volume 16 (1998)
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Volume 15 (1997)
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Volume 14 (1996)
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Volume 13 (1995)
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Volume 12 (1994)
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Volume 11 (1993)
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Volume 10 (1992)
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Volume 9 (1991)
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Volume 8 (1990)
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Volume 7 (1989)
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Volume 6 (1988)
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Volume 5 (1987)
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Volume 4 (1986)
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Volume 3 (1985)
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Volume 2 (1984)
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Volume 1 (1983)