Sedimentary Analogs Database Research Program

The Sedimentary Analogs Database and Research Consortium (SAnD) carries out geologic studies of the processes, tectonics, and quantitative morphology of basins around the world. SAnD research emphasizes the use of mega-merged 3D seismic data sets for quantitative seismic geomorphologic study of the basin fill, evaluation of source-to-sink relationships between the shelf, slope and deep basin and analyses of the influence of tectonics and fluids (such as gas hydrates) on the evolution of these complex continental margin settings. The program is currently in its 18th year and is funded by a consortium of hydrocarbon companies and supported by numerous software vendors and foreign energy ministries. The SAnD is widely considered the world’s premier research group in the application of seismic geomorphology to reservoir characterizations.

Mass failure deposits in the Lacustrine fills of the Green River Basin, NW Colorado and Eastern Utah. Photo and interpretation by Forrest McFarlin, PhD Candidate 2022.

SAnD Spring Meeting

Online – May 11-12

Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, SAnD will be moving its spring meeting online. Participants will be contacted via email with registration information, agenda, and all details related to the SAnD online consortium meeting. Join us to learn about the excellent work going on at SAnD and in collaboration with CoRE. We think you will be pleasantly surprised with the progress we have made on a wide range of topics– we certainly are!

The online meeting will be the morning of May 11th, from 8 to 12 pm (US Mountain Standard time) and continue May 12th, from 1 pm to 5 pm (US Mountain Standard time). With most of the world working from home, we hope to catch as many of our interested colleagues as possible. On May 11th, Dr. Wood will start with an overview of our work, so please don’t miss that. All sessions will provide an opportunity for feedback and questions from the audience to our students, something everyone is looking forward to! Sessions will be recorded for play back at any time. We will end Tuesday with an open discussion at 4 pm for anyone who can provide input.

 

SAnD 2019 Annual Meeting

Midland, Texas; Carlsbad, New Mexico
May 23-26, 2019

The SAnD consortium will hold its its 2019 Spring Meeting May 23 and Field Course to follow May 24 – May 26, 2019 in Midland, Texas and along the beautiful exposures of the Guadalupe Mountains. Dr. Zane Jobe and Wylie Walker will lead a field trip to the mixed carbonate-clastic deposits of the Permian Basin’s western rim, as well as lead an integrated core workshop on the equivalent basinward deposits in the Permian Basin.

Thursday May 23 and the morning of Friday May 24 will be devoted to a suite of talks on the variety of studies being done by the SAND consortium researchers, interspersed with discussion and viewing of two core; one in the Wolfcamp and a second in the Bone Spring, two primary producing units of the Permian Basin. Wylie has been completing work on his master’s thesis looking at the nature of slope failures in outcrop in the western Permian and will collaborate with Dr. Jobe to lead a group field trip Friday afternoon to Sunday evening, where participants will fly home from El Paso, Texas on Monday morning.

This meeting, core workshop and field trip will immediately follow AAPG in San Antonio, Texas. Participants will meet in Midland on Thursday morning. We will send out an all invite and details by early February for room blocks and transportation needs. Cost for the meeting and follow-on field trip will be only transportation, hotel and meals. Come and join us!

Schedule:
May 22: Travel to Midland (overnight in Midland, TX)
May 23: SAnD consortium meeting and core viewing, Midland (overnight in Midland, TX)
May 24: SAnD consortium meeting and core viewing, Midland (afternoon travel and overnight in Carlsbad, NM)
May 25: Field trip to exposures of the Brushy Canyon Formation (overnight in Carlsbad, NM)
May 26: Field trip to exposures of the Bone Spring Formation (overnight in El Paso, TX)
May 27: depart El Paso to go home


SAnD 2018 Annual Meeting

Salt Lake City, Utah
May 24-25, 2018


SAnD 2017 Annual Meeting

San Bernillio, New Mexico
October 6-8, 2017

El Vado in core, Verde Field, San Juan Co., NM

El Vado in core, Verde Field, San Juan Co., NM

The SAnD consortium will hold its annual Fall Fluvial-Deltaic-Shallow Marine meeting October 6 in Bernillio, New Mexico at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort with a core workshop in tight sand reservoirs. We will devote Friday to discussions of rift basin research, low net gross shelf sand reservoirs, reservoir modeling methodologies in transgressive, tidally-influenced reservoirs, parallic to slope seismic geomorphology of the NW Australian shelf, lacustrine mass failures, fluvial channel morphology, clinoforming fill in the Berbice Canyon of offshore Guyana and other topics.

Attendees and other company members are invited to attend a follow-on, two-day core and field workshop at the same location on October 7 and 8. We will spend the mornings looking at core from the San Juan Basin, the largest conventional gas basin in North America, then take the afternoon to visit the outcrops west of Bernillio, where Tiffany Hedayati, Khushboo Arora, Matt Huels and Alex Cheney have all worked. We will be examining in outcrop the lateral relationships in the low net:gross fractured tight sand reservoirs of the Tocito and El Vado Sandstones, the primary producing units of this massive gas basin. We will talk about controls on sand quality distribution, fracturability and how to recognize good versus bad rock. You will be able to fly out of Albuquerque, New Mexico early Sunday evening, or stay over if you want! Cost for the meeting and workshop will be only transportation, hotel and meals. Come and join us! We will send out an all invite and details soon.