GeoResources Principal Geologist Hartmut Jäger is co-organizer of the session ‘organofacies and organic geochemistry of European unconventional shale plays’ at the 29th IAS Meeting of Sedimentology, which will be held September 10-14 in Schladming, Austria. Together with Axel Emmerich (EnBW) this session is organized to focus on the source rock side of unconventional shale plays throughout Europe.
The success of shale gas exploration in North America and most recently the emerging shale oil industry has led to the question whether such a story could be replicated in Europe. Many researchers, consulting companies as well as international and national oil companies have come up with different, sometimes controversial answers. Proved by recent shale and oil gas case studies in the US, the devil is – as usually – in the details. Differing from the common focus on lithological and petrophysical pattern, this session focus on the kerogen composition and preservation, the essential prerequisite for unconventional hydrocarbon generation and entrapment. Therefore all geoscientists dealing with source rocks in European oil and shale gas plays are encouraged to submit their contributions. Since most potential European shale resource plays already have a long lasting record of conventional E&P activities it is expected that the session will address the following of source rock related topics:
- Organofacies: Kerogen analysis, palaeoenvironment and syn-sedimentary processes.
- Controls of sequence stratigraphy on organofacies.
- Geochemical characterization: initial TOC and kinetics.
- Geochemical / petroleum systems modelling: quantification of primary and secondary cracking
- Maturation and hydrocarbon expulsion.