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MAY/JUN 2022 • ISSUE 3 • VOL 49

THE MAGAZINE OF CANADIAN ENERGY GEOSCIENTISTS

Reservoir cspg.org

CREATING OPPORTUNITIES AND CHARTING NEW HORIZONS ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

WHAT TO EXPECT

This in-person event allows you to connect with fellow geoscientists and enjoy learning directly from cored rocks located around North America.

Technical Presentations Over 20 oral presentations given by researchers, oil and gas practitioners, and renewable energy scientists.

This year’s theme is “Creating Opportunities and Charting New Horizons,” which celebrates the resilience of petroleum geoscientists while exploring new resources and energies.

Core Displays Mix and mingle between core tables to get hands-on exposure to world class drill core.

Presentation topics include: Clastics, Carbonates, Geothermal, CCS/EUR, and Reservoir Development.

The Core Meltdown is BACK!

Socialize with fellow rock lovers and energy enthusiasts at the post-conference social event at Kilkenny Irish Pub on Friday June 24 at 4:30 PM 3630 Brentwood Rd NW #500

REGISTRATION OPENS APRIL 4, 2022 Individual Registration Rates: Regular Member Rate*: $225 Non-member Rate*: $325 Member Single Day Rate: $125 Non-member Single Day Rate: $175 Student Rate*: $50 *Core Meltdown ticket included

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Registration x 5:

$900

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$1,500

($45 savings per person) ($75 savings per person)

**On-site registration will be available

Want to attend the Core Meltdown but can’t make the conference? You can purchase tickets for the Core Meltdown for $25

In This Issue

M AY / J U N 2 0 2 2

Letter from the Editor

24 CSPG Honorary Member Award

Go Take A Hike – Crypt Lake, Waterton National Park, Alberta

26 From the Desk of the AER

11 2021 Tracks Awards

28 CSPG Honorary Member Award

12 Graduate Student Thesis Award – Best Ph.D.

30 Graduate Student Thesis Award – M.Sc. Honorable Mention

15 2021 H.M. Hunter Award Citation

33 2021 Tracks Award

18 2021 H.M. Hunter Award Citation

34 The Blue View: Industry Trends through Woodmac's Lens

19 Graduate Student Thesis Award – Best M.Sc.

37 Thank You to all the CSPG Sponsors

22 In Memory – Ken Potma

CONFERENCES

NEW E-TALK FORMAT!

CORE CONFERENCE 2022 PAGE 25 MOUNTJOY 2022

PAGES 16-17

PAGE 2

2022 UPCOMING INFORMATION

RAM FALLS, ALBERTA. This beautiful waterfall south of Nordegg in the Rocky Mountain Foothills has been created by the resistant, sand-dominated Sturrock Member of the Late Cretaceous (Turonian-Coniacian) Cardium Formation. The Cardium was deposited in a shallow marine, storm-dominated setting. Here its outcrops outline a large fold intersected by the Ram River. The unit is overlain by dark shales of the Wapiabi Formation across an erosional contact related to regional transgression. Photo by: Jon Noad.

RESERVOIR ISSUE 3 • MAY/JUN 2022

FROM THE EDITOR TOM SNEDDON, PROFESSIONAL GEOLOGIST (ALBERTA), PROFESSIONAL GEOSCIENTIST

elcome to the Merry Month of May/June, Geoscience community! Despite all the black swan events that have occurred, golf is back and so (soon) will be summer. That means field trips without ice and snow. It also means that we can once again meet real rocks on their own terms. To get you into the mood, check out Jon Noad’s cover photo to this edition. You can almost feel the spray from Ram Falls. It also means Spring conferences, especially the June Core Conference and associated GeoConvention (see geoconvention.com for up-to-date details). Conferences, in-person and virtual papers on erudite topics and a chance (finally) to meet once again in the flesh. Announcements for the Gussow, and Mountjoy Conferences are made as well. Go Take A Hike features the Frank Lake Erratics in Waterton National Park, with Dallin Laycock, Phil Benham and Clint Tippett leading you through the geologically complexities of the Upper Waterton Lake district of the Park. This issue also announces the CSPG Awards including:

• The Tracks Award for 2021 • The Patricia J. Lee Trailblazer for 2021 • The 2021 Stanley Slipper Gold Medal • The 2021 R.J.W Douglas Medal

Best wishes from the Reservoir staff to all those whose work and volunteerism is much appreciated by the Society and the Trust.

• Graduate Student Thesis awards for the best Ph.D. and Master’s tomes produced in 2021, together with an Honourable Mention for 2021 Master’s • 2021 H.M. Hunter Awards • 2021 Honourary Member Awards Woodmac returns with The Blue View: Industry Trends. Cheer up, all, things are getting better! The sports announcements are coming - along with July/August! More geoscience articles are needed for the balance of 2022, so if you have some great ideas, put an abstract together and send them to me. If they are time sensitive, please let your intrepid Editor know to allow for future planning. Your Editorial Committee would like to develop a series of specific interest issues next Autumn and Winter. That’s it for May/June 2022. Enjoy this edition, the improved weather and all our Canadian Geological Provinces for the coming holiday vacation season. n

Tom Sneddon PUBLICATIONS INFORMATION The RESERVOIR is published 6 times per year by the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists. The purpose of the RESERVOIR is to publicize the Society’s many activities and to promote the geosciences. We look for both technical and non-technical material to publish. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced either in part or in full without the consent of the publisher. No official endorsement or sponsorship by the CSPG is implied for any advertisement, insert, or article that

RESERVOIR ISSUE 3 • MAY/JUN 2022

appears in the RESERVOIR unless otherwise noted. All submitted materials are reviewed by the editor. We reserve the right to edit all submissions, including letters to the Editor. Submissions must include your name, address, and membership number (if applicable). The material contained in this publication is intended for informational use only. While reasonable care has been taken, authors and the CSPG make no guarantees that any of the equations, schematics, or devices discussed will perform as expected

or that they will give the desired results. Some information contained herein may be inaccurate or may vary from standard measurements. The CSPG expressly disclaims any and all liability for the acts, omissions, or conduct of any third-party user of information contained in this publication. Under no circumstances shall the CSPG and its officers, directors, employees, and agents be liable for any injury, loss, damage, or expense arising in any manner whatsoever from the acts, omissions, or conduct of any third-party user.

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RESERVOIR ISSUE 3 • MAY/JUN 2022

GO TAKE A HIKE

Crypt Lake, Waterton National Park, Alberta Dallin Laycock, Philip Benham, and Clint Tippett

Trailhead: Accessible only by ferry. Tickets for the ferry can be purchased at the Waterton townsite marina, with one or two departures daily, depending on the season. Buy tickets in advance. Distance: 17 km return trip along the main route. Elevation: Gradual 700 m gain.

rypt Lake is amongst the most famous and beautiful hikes of the Canadian Rockies, once lauded by National Geographic as being one of the world’s most thrilling. The trail starts in a lush pine forest before snaking up a U-shaped glacial valley and eventually passing through a man-made tunnel to access the picturesque lake, nestled in a cirque. Waterton townsite is built on an alluvial fan that prograded into the lake after the retreat of the valley glacier. The Prince of Wales Hotel to the north sits on a glacial kame. To the east, directly across the lake from the townsite, a low-profile ridge of Lower Altyn Fm. dolomites displays gently dipping strata. The north end of the ridge and the kame below the hotel create a strait that connects Upper and Middle Waterton lakes. The ferry takes a circuitous route through the marina as it navigates around a shallowly submerged spit, avoiding this bar of sediment created

by northward longshore drift. The boat ride to Crypt Landing allows one to take note of the surroundings. Upper Waterton Lake is a long, skinny glacial lake that has been modified by many glacial processes. Once ashore, the hike follows a single U-shaped glacial valley with various glacial landforms visible throughout. A stream flowing along the axis of the valley has created several waterfalls (Figure 2). In addition to shaping these beautiful landforms, erosion has also exposed the amazing lithologies of the 1.4 Ga Belt-Purcell Supergroup, prominently featuring faults, folds, and stromatolites.

FIGURE 1: Geologic map of the Crypt Lake Trail (red and white line). Canada-USA border at the bottom of the map. Modified from Stockmal and Fallas, 2015. FIGURE 2: Grey-brown dolomite (Altyn Fm.) along the path displaying conjugate fracture sets. FIGURE 3: Before emerging from the forest one can explore Twin Falls (pictured), a short detour from the trail. The falls are shown cascading down an outcrop of Appekunny Fm. exposing green, maroon, and red argillite and quartzite strata. 2

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The early stages of the hike pass through dense forest. Keen eyes can spot occasional outcrops of the Altyn Fm. underfoot that display complex conjugate fracture sets, indicative of stress directions that were present during mountain building (Figure 3). Eventually the trail emerges from the forest and crosses the contact with the overlying Appekunny Fm. The trail parallels Hell-Roaring Creek about two thirds of the way to Crypt Lake and provides a good opportunity to examine the stratigraphy on the valley walls above. Stratigraphically overlying the Appekunny, on the north side of the valley, is the red-browncoloured Grinnell Formation. Yet higher are thrust-repeated, older algal limestones and dolomites of the Waterton and Altyn formations riding on the Mt. Crandell Thrust. Next, the trail approaches Swirling Mist Falls (Figure 4). The waterfall provides an example of knickpoint regression. As the creek has strived to downcut through the resistant Altyn Fm., it has exploited softer Grinnell Fm. strata downstream and eventually retreated upstream, undercutting the softer rocks in the plunge pool below the falls. Beyond these falls the U-shaped geometry of the glacier-carved valley becomes even more pronounced. After a series of switchbacks, the trail crosses a hidden gem that most hikers pass without noticing: a field of boulders containing a large number of clearly visible stromatolites. These 1.4-billionyear-old fossilized mats of cyanobacteria are from the Siyeh Fm.

Stromatolites can be seen throughout Waterton Park, but this might be the most spectacular place to observe them (Figure 5). Approaching the cliffs of the hanging valley ahead, it’s hard to see how the trail might reach the lake high above (Figure 6). The trail narrows as it approaches the iconic tunnel that brings hikers safely through to the final approach to Crypt Lake. The tunnel entrance is a great place to observe the effects of bedding thickness on fracture patterns in the Altyn Fm. (Figure 7). Be careful on this section of the trail as it is quite narrow. After scaling the switchbacks and passing through the tunnel, hikers make the final ascent to Crypt Lake. Before reaching the lakeshore, there is an interesting weathering pattern in the limestone along the path of bumpy, horned or spiked blocks called “clints” separated by elongated grooves or fissures called “grykes”. Clints and grykes form when carbonic acid created during interactions between atmosphere, groundwater, and vegetation dissolves the limestone. Older fracture networks create weak surfaces where enhanced dissolution creates the small channels. The karsted blocks of limestone resemble a rough pavement and contain a variety of weathering features (Figure 8 and illustration in Figure 9).

FIGURE 4: Swirling Mist Falls, cascading over a resistant ledge of Altyn Formation. Notice the folding in the outcrop to the left, related to the hanging-wall deformation by the Mt Crandell Thrust (dashed red line), which carried Altyn Fm. (PAy) over the Grinnell Fm. (PGr). FIGURE 5: Stromatolites visible in boulders sourced from the Siyeh Fm. (PSy). FIGURE 6: View of the towering Crypt Falls, which pours down over 150 m out of the glacially sculpted hanging valley. The tunnel illustrated in Figure 12 is on the far left (white arrow).

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FIGURE 7: Hikers enter the 20 m long tunnel carved into the Altyn Fm., making their way up the hanging valley that hosts Crypt Lake. FIGURE 8: Clints and Grykes visible in limestone outcrop in the final approach to Crypt Lake. Hiker for scale. FIGURE 9: Undated figure created by Elizabeth Picket in article on karst in the Yorkshire Dales (https://dalesrocks.org.uk/ geological-processes/pristinepavement/).

FIGURE 10: Panoramic photo of Crypt Lake with surrounding cliffs of Appekunny (PAp) and Grinnell (PGr) fms.

Crypt Lake is a tarn, a body of water that occupies the depression created by glacial excavation of a cirque (Figure 10). This stunningly beautiful tarn lies between Mt. Boswell to the southwest and Arras Peak to the northeast. The surrounding rocks are mostly comprised of gently dipping Appekunny Fm. with a hint of the reds and browns of the Grinnell Fm. visible in the peaks at the south end of the lake. Talus cones surround the lake on all sides, making a hike around the lake possible when they are not covered in snow. As would be expected of a cirque, the lake has an asymmetrical depth profile, being more deeply excavated in the south against the headwall of the glacier where it was subjected to the most grinding and plucking by the weight of the ice. The tarn shallows to the north where the trail first encounters the shore. Some hardy souls traverse the talus to the south end to take a plunge into the cold water. Note that the southern edge of the lake crosses the US border. This part of the border is unpatrolled and does not pose any complications for hikers.

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During the descent back down to the boat dock, the view is dominated by the stunning panoramic views of the U-shaped glacial valley (Figure 11) with towering cliffs of light grey Altyn Fm. in the hanging wall of the Mt. Crandell Thrust and the green-to-red quartzite and argillites of the Appekunny (footwall of the fault) in the valley floor below. The return journey provides a great opportunity to try to determine where the trail crosses the Mt. Crandell Thrust. Refer to the descriptions in the stratigraphy column (Figure 17) and the geological map (Figure 1) for assistance in locating the thrust. The descent ends back at the boat dock, where examination of beach rocks shows a colourful assortment of Belt-Purcell Supergroup lithologies. Careful hunting in these rocks might yield some containing muddy rip-up clasts, syneresis cracks, en echelon veins, and even stromatolites. Note that collecting is not allowed.

FIGURE 11: View looking NW down the U-shaped glacial valley. FIGURE 12: Reconstruction of Horodyskia williamsi by Grey et al., 2010. Length is 10 cm. FIGURE 13: H. williamsi, 1.4 Ga Backdoor Fm, Western Australia. Beads are about 0.5 cm apart. Image from Troppenz and Littkowski. 2019. 14

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Shallow to marginal marine strata of Proterozoic Belt-Purcell Supergroup are well known for their stromatolites, but the fossil record shows a more diverse ecosystem than you might expect. Stromatolites arose at least 3.5 Ga, reaching their peak in abundance and diversity about 1.2 Ga, somewhat later than the 1.4 Ga time of deposition of the Altyn Fm. Evolutionary experiments of the Ediacaran were yet to occur and the Cambrian Explosion was more than 700 million years into the future… but life thrived, and it set the scene for the changes to come. The seafloor was home to a diverse microbial community of bacteria and algae, forming leathery mats at the sediment-water interface. The mats appear in fine-grained sediments of the Altyn Fm. as wrinkled and stippled surfaces. Normal conditions would not disturb them and there was a general absence of mobile grazers. Only events like exposure, storms, earthquakes, and slumps might rip up the mats into jagged pieces that were sometimes thrown together into organic-rich breccias. Charles Walcott, of Burgess Shale fame, named the organic fragments Beltina danai on the basis of the tuburculate textures similar to eurypterids and assigned them to arthropods, highlighting the challenge of distinguishing early life forms! Another example currently under debate is Horodyskia williamsi (a mysterious string of “beads”

FIGURE 14: The Altyn and Appekunny fms. contain Grypania spiralis (a spiralling algae). It is found around the world in this time frame. This example is from the black shales of the upper Doushantuo Fm, NE Guizhou (Wang et al., 2016). Scale bar is 1 cm long. FIGURE 15: Wrinkled microbial mat from the Appekunny Fm. (Glacier National Park). The wrinkles and microbial tufts may snag drifting mud chips creating lines resembling Horodyskia. Image from Roy and Pratt, 2019.

interpreted to be connected by fine threads). Horodyskia is potentially one of the first eukaryotes, but others suggest it is not an organism at all but was formed by rows of preserved mud flakes trapped on upraised tufts of the microbial mat (Rule and Pratt, 2019). The collective biomass of this still poorly understood ecosystem is important, as most of it was photosynthetic, churning out oxygen that transformed the Earth’s atmosphere. Around 4.5 Ga the Earth’s atmosphere was primarily composed of CO2, CH4, H2O, CO, small components of N and H – but essentially no O2. Still there were enough greenhouse gases to support life on Earth, in spite the sun’s brightness only being 70% of today’s strength. By 2.5 Ga (the beginning of the Proterozoic) nitrogen had reached todays levels, but oxygen was still largely absent. All that was to change with the Great Oxygenation Event at the start of the Proterozoic as life was now sufficiently abundant to produce oxygen as a photosynthetic by-product. One early outcome was deposition of BIF or banded iron formations (varve-like layers of hematite / magnetite and chert). These resulted from algal blooms and subsequent shallow marine anoxic events that became common around 2.5 Ga but were mostly absent after 1.8 Ga, when the ocean deep also became oxygenated (Trendall, 2002). 60% of the world iron reserves come from BIFs.

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FIGURE 16: Stratigraphic column for the Purcell Supergroup in the Waterton area (after Stockmal and Fallas, 2015). The colours and abbreviations reflect those on the Geologic map in Figure 1.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS: Fedonkin, M. A., 2003; The origin of the Metazoa in the light of the Proterozoic fossil record; Paleontological Research, v. 7, no. 1, p. 9-41; doi:10.2517/prpsj.7.9. Gordy, P. L., Frey, F. R., and Norris, D. K., (eds.), 1977; Geological guide for the CSPG 1977 WatertonGlacier Park Field Conference; 93 p. Grey, K., Yochelson, E. L., Fedonkin, M. A., and Martin, D. McB., 2010; Horodyskia williamsii new species, a Mesoproterozoic macrofossil from Western Australia; Precambrian Research, v. 180, p. 1-17; doi: 10.1016/j.precamres.2010.02.006. Horodyski, R. J., 1982; Problematic bedding-plane markings from the Middle Proterozoic Appekunny Formation, Belt Supergroup, northwestern Montana; Journal of Paleontology, v. 56, p. 882-889. Lebel, D., Douglas, R. J. W., and Norris, D. K., 1994; Geology, Waterton Lakes, Alberta. Geological Survey of Canada Open File 2855, 1 sheet; https://doi. org/10.4095/203331.

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Pratt, B., 1994; Seismites in the Mesoproterozoic Altyn Formation (Belt Supergroup), Montana: A test for tectonic control of peritidal carbonate cyclicity; Geology, v. 22, no. 10; https://doi.org/10.1130/00917613(1994)022%3C1091:SITMAF%3E2.3.CO;2. Retallack, G. J., Dunn, K. L., and Saxby, J., 2013; Problematic Mesoproterozoic fossil Horodyskia from Glacier National Park, Montana, USA; Precambrian Research, v. 226, p. 125-142; doi:10.1016/j. precamres.2012.12.005 Rule, R. and Pratt, B., 2019; The pseudofossil Horodyskia: Flocs and flakes on microbial mats in a shallow Mesoproterozoic sea (Appekunny Formation, Belt Supergroup, western North America); Precambrian Research, v. 333; 105439. 10.1016/j. precamres.2019.105439. Stockmal, G. S. and Fallas, K. M., 2015; Geology, Chinook South, Alberta – British Columbia; Geological Survey of Canada Open File 7476, 48 p., 1 sheet; https://doi.org/10.4095/297169. https://opengeology.org/historicalgeology/virtualfield-experiences-vfes/vfe-stromatolite-diversity-inthe-belcher-islands/.

Trendall, A. F., 2002; The significance of iron formation in the Precambrian stratigraphic record; In: W. Altermann and P. L. Corcoran (eds.); Precambrian sedimentary environments: A modern approach to ancient depositional systems; Blackwell Science Ltd., p. 33-36; ISBN 0-632-06415-3. Troppenz, U-M. and Littkowski, S., 2019; The Mesoproterozoic - no "boring billion"; Iran Journal of Earth Sciences, v. 11, no. 4, p. 239-243. Wang, Y., Wang, Y. and Du, W., 2016; The longranging macroalga Grypania spiralis from the Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation, Guizhou, South China; Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, v. 40, p. 1-10; 10.1080/03115518.2016.1127725.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: VISIT WEBSITE

Mia Costigan began her energy career at the University of Calgary in 2006 with a Bachelor of Science in Geology. After graduating, Mia took on roles as a junior geologist with Perpetual Energy and then eventually Husky Energy, where she acquired her professional designation. While developing her career in geosciences, her versatility and leadership skills were recognized as she initiated company-wide geotechnical collaborative projects, resulting in effective cross functional teams and revenue growth through by passed oil targets and reserve additions. Now a technically versatile Geologist with over 12 years’ experience in the energy industry. Mia has successfully transitioned to the role of Corporate Development Manager. Combining technical and business experience to fuel achievement of strategic business goals. Currently Mia works for Proton Technologies Canada, a cleantech startup company reviving the energy industry through novel hydrogen production. As a collaborative and innovative problem solver, with an inclusive leadership style, Mia has been a keystone in the long-term development and overall vision of Proton as it explores novel processes to produce hydrogen from oilfields. Additionally, she is an active member of CSPG as a committee and co-chair member with the Energy and Emerging Technology in Geoscience Symposium.

2021 TRACKS AWARDS

Mia Costigan, P. Geo

Stephen Grasby Stephen Grasby is a Research Scientist at the Geological Survey of Canada where he has worked since being awarded a PhD from University of Calgary in 1997. Since that time he has worked in various projects across Canada, including all three territories and the High Arctic. He has applied geochemical skills to various issues ranging from petroleum source rock studies, paleoenvironment research, regional groundwater studies, nuclear waste storage, and geomicrobiology. Over the last 20 years he has lead the push to reinvigorate geothermal research in Canada. This includes the landmark assessment of Canada’s geothermal resource potential published in 2012. Steve first joined the CSPG as an undergrad student and then began volunteering once he joined the GSC. This includes serving as chair of the Hydrogeology Division, as well as being a member on the convention committee, and serving on the organising committee for GeoCanada 2010. He initiated the popular Gussow Conference series including chairing the first two events and over the years he has led or co-led numerous CSPG field trips in western Canada. Steve continues to support to the growth of the CSPG, he most recently helped develop the EETiG (Energy and Emerging Technology in Geoscience) conference series which included co-chairing the first event.

RESERVOIR ISSUE 3 • MAY/JUN 2022

2021 GRADUATE STUDENT THESIS AWARD

BEST PH.D.

Sarah Schultz The recipient of the 2021 Ph.D. thesis award is Sarah Schultz. Her thesis is entitled “Sequence Stratigraphy of the Viking Formation in Central Alberta” and was supervised by Dr. James MacEachern at Simon Fraser University. The study was funded through a NSERC Discovery grant awarded to Dr. MacEachern, and additional funding was provided by the Department of Earth Sciences at Simon Fraser. Sarah has been working at the Alberta Geological Survey (AGS) on the Subsurface Geology and Geohazards team as a clastic stratigrapher since January 2019. The late Albian Viking Formation was deposited in a shallow foreland basin in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. The Viking Formation is currently defined on the basis of lithostratigraphic and allostratigraphic nomenclature. Both constructs reside at too broad of a hierarchical scale to facilitate within-field correlations for a significant hydrocarbon producing unit. This study proposes a sequence stratigraphic framework that utilizes the four-systems tract nomenclature for the deposits across central Alberta. A high-resolution approach to the mapping of facies associations that comprise the various systems tracts has been undertaken in order to create a regionally consistent model. The major contributions of this thesis include: i) using sequence stratigraphy to identify areas that were affected by the subtle reactivation of basement faults; ii) identifying areas of coeval deposition of transgressive and regressive packages within a sequence; and iii) generating a high-resolution sequence stratigraphic framework for the deposits in central Alberta. A version of each chapter has been either been published or is accepted pending revisions.

FIGURE 1 Study map of the thesis area. Red dots indicate core that was logged for the study. The blue lines indicate the extent of the lowstand paleoshorelines for Sequences 1 – 3.

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Tectonic activity and the reactivation of pre-existing faults can have a significant effect on the orientation and distribution of systems tracts. This study focuses on a 250 km long lowstand paleoshoreline trend extending along-strike (NW to SE) between two hydrocarbonproducing fields: Joarcam and Judy Creek (Schultz et al., 2019; Fig. 1). The Viking Formation in each of these fields varies from 20 to 30 m thick. Between these two fields, however, the formation is anomalously thick

Skeletonized cross section from Judy Creek (NW) to Joarcam (SE), showing the effect of selecting various surfaces below, within and above the Viking as datums. Flooding surfaces within the Snowbird Tectonic Zone become deflected as progressive datums are selected (Schultz et al., 2019). The results of this indicate that multiple datums are required to accurately map systems tracts within the Viking Formation.

(45–60 m), complicating the recognition and correlation of key stratigraphic surfaces. Marine flooding surfaces above and below the Viking Formation are routinely employed as stratigraphic datums in order to remove post-depositional deformation and facilitate the correlation. However, as each successive surface is employed as the datum, the other flooding surfaces within the formation become distorted, resulting in unrealistic depositional geometries (Fig. 2). Locally, the increased accommodation observed within the Viking Formation is attributed to differential reactivation of basement structures of the Paleoproterozoic Snowbird Tectonic Zone, which flank the areas of anomalously thick Viking stratigraphy and trend approximately normal to the regional strike of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. The Snowbird Tectonic Zone faults are interpreted to have been reactivated during renewed tectonic loading in the southern Canadian Cordillera during Aptian–Albian time, causing subtle readjustments that caused variable syndepositional subsidence. The variability in accommodation space, owing to reactivation of the Snowbird Tectonic Zone, and sedimentation rates within the basin has resulted in significant deviations in the along-strike stratal stacking patterns of the systems tracts. This variability has led to juxtaposition of coeval depositional units recording transgressive (retrogradational) and regressive (progradational) stratal stacking patterns. In these scenarios, the maximum flooding surface records a high degree of diachroneity, with its position shifts markedly within the stratigraphic column (Fig. 3). While the concomitant deposition of transgressive and regressive units has been documented in a number of modern marine

analogues, the concept has only rarely been applied to ancient subsurface successions (e.g., Madof et al., 2015). A high-resolution sequence stratigraphic framework was created for the Viking Formation across much of central Alberta by identifying and mapping facies associations and sequence stratigraphic surfaces that were identified in core. Approximately 210 core and 1500 well logs were used to create the framework (Fig. 1). This study identified at least 4 sequences of Viking deposition in central Alberta. The succession was mapped using Depositional Sequence IV nomenclature, permitting the identification of falling stage, lowstand, transgressive and highstand systems tracts. A high-resolution sequence stratigraphic model is required when exploring for new hydrocarbon or disposal opportunities in a mature basin. In this study, four additional hydrocarbon play types have been identified, including: transgressively incised shorefaces, falling-stage deposits, halo-plays in lowstand deposits, and along-strike variability in time-equivalent shoreline deposits. These additional play types do not always form conventional reservoirs (e.g., halo-plays) and broad areas of the basin may have been overlooked as non-prospective. Regional trends that were commonly assumed to exhibit uniform deposition along strike have proven to be more stratigraphically complex than was thought previously. By carefully mapping these deposits in a high-resolution context it is possible to: i) delineate and refine the mapping of regional trends; ii) correlate valley incision to their timeequivalent falling-stage and lowstand shorelines; and iii) provide additional criteria for identifying future reservoir units in a mature basin.

2021 GRADUATE STUDENT THESIS AWARD

FIGURE 2

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2021 GRADUATE STUDENT THESIS AWARD

A copy of the thesis is not yet available for download. In the future it can be accessed through the Simon Fraser University thesis repository site.

Award Recipient Interview

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THESIS

FIGURE 3 Schematic representation of the variable and diachronous nature of the maximum flooding surface (MFS) in coeval regressive and transgressive depositional packages (Schultz et al., 2020, modified from Madof et al., 2015). The position of the MFS is stratigraphically higher in the thick transgressive systems tracts areas and is significantly younger. The position of the MFS is stratigraphically lower in the thick highstand systems tracts and is significantly older. The MFS is denoted as a stepped line in order to convey the fact that the highstand systems tract (HST) and transgressive systems tract (TST) packages were deposited concurrently, and represent a subtle change in depositional facies as the system evolved.

REFERENCES: Schultz, S.K., MacEachern, J.A., Catuneanu, O., and Dashtgard, S.E. accepted pending revisions. High-resolution sequence stratigraphic framework for the late Albian Viking Formation in central Alberta. For submission in Marine and Petroleum Geology. Schultz, S.K., MacEachern, J.A., Catuneanu, O., and Dashtgard, S.E. 2020. Coeval deposition of transgressive and normal regressive stratal packages in a structurally controlled area of the Viking Formation, central Alberta, Canada. Sedimentology, 67(6): 2974 - 3002. Schultz, S.K., MacEachern, J.A., and Gibson, H.D. 2019. Late Mesozoic reactivation of Precambrian basement structures and their resulting effects on the sequence stratigraphic architecture of the Viking Formation of east-central Alberta, Canada. Lithosphere, 11(3): 308 – 322.

Weishan Ren first became involved with the CSPG by joining the Geomodeling committee in late 2006. In 2007, he became the chairman of the geomodeling committee, running the division with top level geomodelers in the committee until 2021. He’s very passionate in building up the geomodeling community and promoting advanced geomodeling technology and its practical applications. By organizing monthly geomodeling technical talks, he connected with many brilliant local and international professionals and found it very rewarding from an academic perspective. One of his greatest achievements is being part of an organization committee that successfully coordinated three Gussow Geoscience conferences: Closing the Gap - Advanced in Applied Geomodeling for Hydrocarbon Reservoirs in 2011, 2014, and 2018. He has chaired many geomodeling sessions in GeoConvention conferences and Gussow Geoscience conferences. He also reviewed geomodeling related technical papers for the Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology (BCPG). He was the associate editor and technical reviewer for the Gussow Geomodeling Special Edition of BCPG in December 2019 with Olena Babak, Eric Niven, and Kristen Rohr. He also served as Director of Technical Conferences and Workshops on the CSPG Board from 2013 to 2014. This was a very rewarding role, as it allowed him to work with many talented individuals both on the Board and also in the CSPG office, and gain high level insight into the workings of CSPG. Weishan has been the recipient of multiple CSPG Volunteer and Service Awards over the past several years.

Weishan holds a Ph.D. degree in petroleum engineering, with a focus on geostatistical reservoir modeling, from the University of Alberta. He also holds a M.Sc. degree in reservoir engineering from the University of Alberta, and a Bachelor degree in petroleum geological exploration from the Southwest Petroleum University, China. Weishan Ren currently is a geomodeling specialist, a registered Professional Geoscientist with APEGA, and the president of RWS Geomodeling Ltd. He has more than 20 years of working experience in the oil and gas industry, including 15 years of geomodeling work on many Canadian oil and gas projects and 5 years of working experience on conventional oil reservoirs in the Shengli oil field with SINOPEC, China. Previously he worked as a Principal Geologist/Geomodeler with Statoil Canada Ltd. and worked as a Geomodeling Advisor/Geostatistian on the Surmont Oil Sands project with ConocoPhillips Canada. He has published over 20 technical papers relating to geostatistics, geomodeling, and reservoir engineering.

2021 H.M. Hunter Award

WEISHAN REN

Award Recipient Interview

RESERVOIR ISSUE 3 • MAY/JUN 2022

2022 UPCOMING EVENTS INFORMATION May 18th Wednesday | 11:00am – 12:00pm

Virtual

Technical Webinar

VISIT

Sequence Stratigraphy of the Viking Formation in Central Alberta

UPCOMING EVENTS

Speaker: Dr. Sarah K. Schultz

May 20th Friday | 12:00pm – 1:00pm

Virtual

Structural E-Technical Division Talk Directly dating brittle deformation using U-Pb carbonate and K-Ar dating Speakers: Catherine Mottram (University of Portsmouth) and Dawn Kellett (Geological Survey of Canada)

MAY

May 28th Saturday | 1 Day Trip

May 13th Friday | 7:30pm – 8:30pm

Virtual

Paleontology E-Technical Division Talk The Earliest Known Dinosaurs from Western Canada Keynote Speakers: Jason D. Pardo and Ramon S. Nagesan

May 17

Tuesday | 12:00pm – 1:00pm

Virtual

GeoWomen Talk Positioning Yourself to Sit on a Board: Board Ready Women Speakers: Heather Culbert & Jennifer Koury Moderator: Julia McElgunn

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GUSSOW Field Trip Hot and Cold Running Water in the Canadian Rockies Leader: Steven Grasby, Geological Survey of Canada Location: Various Locations in Banff and Kananaskis

May 31st Tuesday | 12:00pm – 1:30pm

Geo Match Open House Geo Match introduction networking event Breakout sessions with speakers for each group Location: Prince’s Island Park, Calgary

2022 UPCOMING EVENTS INFORMATION

JUNE June 2nd Thursday | 12:00pm – 1:00pm

June 18th Saturday | 1 Day Trip

GeoConvention Field Trip

Virtual

Moose Mountain Field Trip Leader: Andrew Newson

Structural E-Technical Division Talk

Location: Moose Mountain

Geological Expeditions to the Southern Continent: unraveling the polyphase tectonic history of the Transantarctic Mountains (northern Victoria Land, Antarctica).

June 19th

Speaker: Laura Crispini

June 7th – 9th

Sunday | 1 Day Trip

GeoConvention Field Trip The Jura Creek field trip: the drowning unconformity and anoxic sediments at the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary Leader: Dr. Pavel Kabanov

3 Full Days

Location: Jura Creek near Exshaw, AB

CSPG Short Course Clastics with Jim Barclay

June 27th

Instructor: Jim Barclay

Monday | 1 Full Day Course

Location: (CRC) Core Research Centre

GeoConvention Short Course

June 8

Wednesday | 12:00pm – 1:00pm

Virtual

International E-Technical Division Talk

Data Science for Geoscientists Leader: Ryan Mardani Location: CSPG Classroom, Aquitaine Tower, Calgary Alberta

The Llanos Basin’s Heavy Oil fields: A challenging and important player in the oil production of Colombia.

June 28th and 29th

Speakers: Lino Castillo and Oscar Valbuena

GeoConvention Short Course

Virtual

Core Workshop - Methodology for Describing Carbonate and Clastic Cores

June 9th Thursday | 12:00pm – 1:00pm

Virtual

2 Day Course

Leaders: Eva Drivet, Brian Zaitlin, and David Hills Location: (CRC) Core Research Centre

Geothermal E-Technical Division Talk Understanding and mitigating induced earthquakes due to geothermal operations Speaker: Thomas Eyre

RESERVOIR ISSUE 3 • MAY/JUN 2022

2021 H.M. HUNTER AWARD

ANDRE CHOW Andre Chow began volunteering with the CSPG in 1988, when after winning the 1986 Best MSc. Thesis Award he was asked by the Thesis Committee chairman, this year’s honorary member awardee David James, to join the committee. Little did Andre realize that this would lead to an over 30-year journey with the committee first as a member and then taking over as the Chair of the committee in 2000 – a position which he has not been able to pass on since that time. Volunteering on the Thesis Award committee despite getting buried under lengthy MSc and PhD dissertations every fall is extremely rewarding as it is uniquely positioned to read and appreciate the latest graduate student research in geoscience from across Canada. He especially values the relationships he has established with his fellow committee members and is extremely grateful for the efforts and discussions of committee members and the CSPG staff both past and present. Over the years technology has made work on the committee much easier. Pre-2000 a hard copy of each completed thesis was mailed or couriered to the committee. Now, all theses are submitted electronically to the committee. So instead of having to distribute the hard copy to individual committee members to read and then being passed on to the next member, committee members can now access an electronic copy from Google Drive. This has removed the pressure to read and circulate the theses quickly so that all members on the committee could read as many of the contending theses in a timely fashion and eliminated the practical limit to the number of committee members. The committee has since doubled in size which has brought in younger members and gender parity. The most recent technological addition has been to elevate the profile of the winners on social media (LinkedIn) which has exposed Andre’s weakness as an interviewer but given the award winners an opportunity to go into greater detail on their dissertation to a wider audience.

Award Recipient Interview

In 2015 the Thesis Committee was approached by the CSPG executive to resurrect the Regional Graduate Scholarships as the award had been not presented in the previous 7 years so Andre and the committee added this task to their workload. This has been an ideal fit as it gives the committee a preview of what to expect. Andre has also served on a couple of short-term volunteer roles. In 1990 he joined the CSPG’s Western Lexicon Committee to help with getting the 4th Edition of the Western Canada Lexicon to completion. This provided Andre with the chance to work with Don Glass, the editor, who was a great mentor. In 1997 Andre also joined the Special Events Committee for the 1997 CSPG-SEPM Joint Convention. The highlight was organizing the first Core Meltdown which was held outdoors behind the EUB Core Research Center and getting an upstart brewery, Big Rock, to create a couple of special beers (Medium Crude and Condensate) for the occasion. In 2018 Andre joined the GeoMatch Committee to help establish the CSPG mentorship program. Mentoring has been something close to Andre’s heart since he had excellent mentors early in his career. The GeoMatch program is now up and running and the committee is hoping that as we return to more in-person events this summer more Mentee/Mentor relationships will be formed. Andre earned a B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the McGill University. Over a 40year career, Andre has worked at numerous oil and gas companies both multi-nationals and juniors mainly in technical roles. He is currently a Senior Geologist at Conifer Energy working on Swan Hills and Leduc reefs and expanding his knowledge about CO2 flooding and sequestration so that Conifer can implement them on their assets. In his spare time Andre and his wife, Manda, enjoy hiking and appreciating the geology of the mountains and hope to get back to travelling in the near future.

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Sydney Stashin The recipient of the Best M.Sc. thesis award for 2021 is Sydney Stashin. Her thesis titled Late Cenozoic Basin Evolution of the Western Canadian Arctic Archipelago: The Beaufort Formation and Iperk Sequence was completed at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia and was supervised by Dr. John Gosse. Funding for this research was provided partially by an NSERC-Discovery Grant and Northern Research Supplement to John Gosse. Significant logistical support including twin otters and equipment for a field expedition on Prince Patrick Island was provided by the Polar Continental Shelf Program. Sydney was awarded a Shell Experiential Learning Fund award, the Nedimović Family Graduate Scholarship, and the Lewis H. King Quaternary Science Award. Sydney earned her B.Sc. (Honours) and M.Sc. from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Dalhousie University in March 2021. She has previous employment in the oil and gas industry, having completed summer geoscience co-ops at ExxonMobil Canada, Marquee Energy, and Seitel Canada. Those experiences which included interpretation of seismic reflection data,

gave Sydney the confidence and drive to scale her thesis from a sedimentology and chronology study to the chronostratigraphy of the Banks-Beaufort Basin. Significant support from scientists at GSC-Calgary and GSC-Atlantic were critical to accessing legacy and more recent (ION) seismic data and ensuring her interpretations considered the context of relevant previous and ongoing research. Currently, she is pursuing her Master’s in Business Administration with the Rowe School of Business, at Dalhousie University. She is an avid climber and skier, recharging herself by sub-annual visits back home to Calgary. Sydney’s thesis focuses on the Beaufort Formation (BFm) and partially coeval Iperk Sequence (IpS), which comprise the fluvial and offshore components of a westward thickening package of Late Miocene to Pliocene fluvial deposits that once extended along the entire western Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA) and into the BanksBeaufort Basin. While the global Mean Annual Temperature (MAT) for the late Pliocene was close to today’s global MAT, in the high Arctic the late Pliocene was 19°C warmer than present (Figure 1). Owing to exquisite preservation of the freezedried subfossil flora (forests), fauna (including camels), and paleo-DNA (Rybczynski et al. 2013), the Beaufort Formation is well recognized for its record of the dramatic ecosystem and landscape response to the subsequent Quaternary cooling (Figure 1).

2021 CSPG GRADUATE THESIS AWARD

BEST M.SC. THESIS

FIGURE 1 Climatostratigraphy of the Iperk Sequence, illustrating a geological time scale, Pacific 𝛿18OBenthic through time, a proxy for temperature, and sea level (m) through time, modified from Miller et al. (2020). Sea level at 0 m is present day. Symbols for the magnetic polarity chrons are as follows: B: Brunhes (<0.78 Ma); M: Matuyama (0.78-2.59 Ma); Ga: Gauss (2.59-3.59 Ma); and Gi: Gilbert (3.59-5.25 Ma). On the far right, the climatostratigraphic units of the IpS within the Banks–Beaufort Basin shelf are depicted. Previous Chronologies (at left) of the BFm across the CAA, including the new TCN isochron burial age from Prince Patrick Island reported (number 6.). Other reported ages are as follows: 1: AAR Ages (Brigham-Grette and Carter 1992); 2: Sr isotope dating (Kaufman et al. 1993) 3: TCN ‘simple’ burial age Banks Island (Braschi 2015); 4: TCN ‘simple’ burial age Beaver Pond Site (Fletcher et al. 2019a) 5: TCN ‘simple’ burial age Fyles Leaf Bed (Rybczynski et al. 2013).

RESERVOIR ISSUE 3 • MAY/JUN 2022

2021 GRADUATE STUDENT THESIS AWARD

FIGURE 2 Two stratigraphic columns (left D8 and right S1) recorded from BFm exposures on Prince Patrick Island. The left column was previously identified by Devaney (1991) as “Section 8”. Images of key features (planer beds, tabular cross beds, trough cross beds, woody debris (‘w’ symbol), and contacts) are shown to the left of their respective columns with numbers corresponding to their location. The large black feature illustrated from 7m to 9.5m on section D8 illustrates an extensive peat that was present within the section. The white ruler card used in photographs is 15 cm in length. A rose diagram of paleoflow directions is illustrated in the top right of the figure, displaying major trends in flow towards the WSW. Thirty-one individual values were measured from imbrication, trough cross beds, and planar cross beds.

The BFm is a lithostratigraphic sequence of unconsolidated, mostly braided stream deposits which once formed a contiguous coastal plain across most of the CAA. There are significant paleoenvironmental and paleoclimate disparities among different BFm and BFm- equivalent sites across the CAA which have triggered hypotheses concerning the role of latitude, continentality, and age in influencing climate conditions during the Pliocene (Fyles 1990, Matthews and Ovenden 1990, Ballantyne et al. 2010, Gosse et al., 2017). Furthermore, it had become apparent that incision of the straits and gulfs in the western CAA and their associated lithospheric flexure (Manion et al., 2017) postdated the BFm. However, there was a lack of chronological control of the BFm and equivalent units throughout the Arctic, with large uncertainties in the chronometries previously used. Thus, a chronostratigraphic framework of the BFm was necessary to provide context for these paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental proxies and landscape evolution. In particular, was the BFm and the different proxies coeval throughout the CAA as a simple climatogenic response might suggest? The BFm represents the eastern limit of a westward thickening clastic wedge that extends across the continental shelf and into the Canada Basin. Sections of the IpS, interpreted from offshore seismostratigraphy in the Canada Basin, had been proposed to contain the submarine equivalent of the BFm fluvial deposits (Fyles 1990). However, this correlation had not been established, and despite similarities drawn to the better resolved stratigraphy of the Beaufort-Mackenzie Basin to the south, the BanksBeaufort basin had remained underexplored. Despite its considerable thickness (>3 km) and shallow position in the Canada Basin, the IpS had not yet been subdivided into its Pliocene and Pleistocene components primarily due to the lack of petroleum well control and marine seismic coverage and resolution needed to correlate its multiple phases across the basin. Subdividing the IpS is crucial to our understanding of Late Miocene to Pleistocene basin evolution in the Banks-Beaufort Basin because the heavily

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dissected onshore remnants of the BFm bare a relatively limited record. Once timing and the offshore stratigraphy was better established, hypotheses for the relationship between IpS and BFm and the subsequent opening of the Northwest Passage could be tested. Sedimentology, paleoflow measurements, and collection of quartz-rich sand and cobbles for cosmogenic nuclide isochron and simple burial dating were collected mainly at two >30 m thick sections (Figure 2) near the type locality for the BFm on Prince Patrick Island (Devaney 1991). Her thesis has provided the first cobble isochron burial age of the BFm, 6.20 ± 0.20(1σ) Ma (Figure 1). This date is supported by and confirms previously published biostratigraphic age estimates of Late Miocene floral and faunal remains (Matthews and Ovenden 1990). It is the oldest of any previously reported numerical age estimates for the BFm and suggests that a strictly Late Pliocene age, often cited for the BFm, is not fully accurate. This and other recently obtained ages imply that synchroneity cannot be assumed when interpreting paleoclimate and biogeographic information of the BFm sites in the western CAA. Rather, the BFm may consist of an assemblage of asynchronous deposits as the marginal sub-basins evolved complexly in response to climate change. It also provides a limiting age for the offshore coeval IpS. Using newly acquired, high-resolution 2D marine seismic reflection data from ION, a more complete basin model of the Late Miocene through Pleistocene deposition within the Banks-Beaufort Basin was developed. This includes shelf and trough stratigraphic and sediment volume estimates. For the first time, the IpS sequence in the Banks-Beaufort Basin is subdivided into eight units ranging in age from the Late Miocene to Pleistocene. In the absence of well data, a climatostratigraphy for the IpS was proposed by relating key seismic stratigraphy elements to climate events and lowstands during this period. Several depositional environments, including a transition from high-energy shallow marine systems to lower energy distal delta front systems have been mapped using seismic facies

Figure 3 depicts Sydney’s conceptualized block diagram of the BFm and Iperk Sequence. It illustrates a snapshot of late Miocene alluvial, fluvial, and marine depositional environments that were recorded throughout the high Arctic. Broadly, the results of this thesis contribute knowledge to the late Cenozoic evolution of the western CAA and develop our understanding of how northern landscapes respond to large-scale climate change.

Sydney’s thesis is available for download

REFERENCES:

THESIS

Award Recipient Interview

Ballantyne, A.P., Greenwood, D.R., Sinninghe Damsté, J.S., Csank, A.Z., Eberle, J.J., and Rybczynski, N. 2010. Significantly warmer Arctic surface temperatures during the Pliocene indicated by multiple independent proxies. Geology, 38: 603–606. doi:10.1130/G30815.1. Braschi, L.C. 2015. Chronostratigraphy of the Beaufort Formation , western Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Dalhousie University.

2021 CSPG GRADUATE THESIS AWARD

attributes. Using the depositional environment model, we estimate the Pliocene shorelines to lie approximately 40 to 50 km offshore—a possible tie for dynamic topography modelling in the western CAA. A preliminary fault analysis of the Banks-Beaufort Bain shelf and slope and adjacent inter-island channels was also conducted. The results have implications for understanding the genesis and relative timing of post-Miocene faulting throughout the Banks-Beaufort Basin.

Brigham-Grette, J., and Carter, L.D. 1992. Pliocene marine transgressions of northern Alaska: circumarctic correlations and paleoclimatic interpretations. Arctic, 45: 74–89. doi:10.14430/arctic1375. Devaney, J.R. 1991. Clastic sedimentology of the Beaufort Formation, Prince Patrick Island, Canadian Arctic Islands: late Tertiary sandy braided river deposits with woody detritus beds. Arctic, 44: 206–216. doi:10.14430/arctic1540. Fletcher, T., Warden, L., Sinninghe Damsté, J.S., Brown, K.J., Rybczynski, N., Gosse, J., and Ballantyne, A.P. 2019a. The role of elevated atmospheric CO2 and increased fire in Arctic amplification of temperature during the Early to mid-Pliocene. Climate of the Past Discussions,: 1–41. doi:10.5194/ cp-2018-60. Fyles, J.G. 1990. Beaufort Formation (late Tertiary) as seen from Prince Patrick Island, Arctic Canada. Arctic, 43: 393–403. doi:10.14430/arctic1632. Gosse, J.C., Ballantyne, A.P., Barker, J.D., Csank, A.Z., Fletcher, T.L., Grant, G.W., Greenwood, D.R., MacPhee, R.D.E., and Rybczynski, N. 2017. PoLAR-FIT: Pliocene

Landscapes and Arctic Remains—Frozen in Time. Geoscience Canada, 44: 47. doi:10.12789/geocanj.2017.44.116. Kaufman, D.S., Carter, L.D., Miller, G.H., Farmer, G.L., and Budd, D.A. 1993. Strontium isotopic composition of Pliocene and Pleistocene molluscs from emerged marine deposits, North American Arctic. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 30: 519–534. doi:10.1139/e93-041. Manion, P. 2017. Lithospheric flexural controls on landscape evolution during deposition and incision of the Beaufort Formation, western Canadian Arctic. Dalhousie University. Matthews, J. V., and Ovenden, L.E. 1990. Late Tertiary plant macrofossils from localities in Arctic/sub- Arctic North America:

a review of the data. Arctic, 43: 364–392. doi:10.14430/arctic1631. Miller, K.G., Browning, J. V., Schmelz, W.J., Kopp, R.E., Mountain, G.S., and Wright, J.D. 2020. Cenozoic sea-level and cryospheric evolution from deep-sea geochemical and continental margin records. Science Advances, 6: eaaz1346. doi:10.1126/sciadv. aaz1346. Rybczynski, N., Gosse, J.C., Richard Harington, C., Wogelius, R.A., Hidy, A.J., and Buckley, M. 2013. Mid-Pliocene warm-period deposits in the High Arctic yield insight into camel evolution. Nature Communications, 4: 1550–1559. Nature Publishing Group. doi:10.1038/ncomms2516.

RESERVOIR ISSUE 3 • MAY/JUN 2022

IN MEMORY

Ken Potma

JUNE 26, 1960 – MARCH 21, 2022

Recent years have seen increasing talk of geoscience’s “Great Crew Change”, the rapid replacement of Baby Boom professionals by a new generation. One reality of this is that some of the old “Crew” don’t simply retire, they pass on. It’s in this light this we remember our colleague Ken Potma, who has died of natural causes at the age of 61.

Ken was born in the shadow of the Niagara Escarpment, in beautiful Grimsby, Ontario, into an immigrant family from the Netherlands. After attending school in Brockville, Stoney Creek and Hamilton, he enrolled in undergraduate Honours Geology at McMaster University. Ken’s natural ability was exemplified by his academic success combined with impressive achievements as a competitive runner (1500m, cross-country, 5 and 10km). It’s a testament to the quality of McMaster’s program at the time that his 1982 graduating class produced so many successful career oil and gas professionals and executives, including one president of the C.S.P.G.

Ken’s knowledge of Devonian carbonates, particularly integration with engineering, drew him into Imperial’s next large project - “blow-down” of the gas caps in the classic Ken’s career began in the summers of his BSc., as a junior Leduc reef oil reservoirs of central Alberta. This involved field geologist, first with Noranda out of Manitouwadge, extensive modelling of the Cooking Lake aquifer and the Ontario and then with Gulf Minerals, exploring for placer reefs themselves - Leduc-Woodbend, Golden Spike, Wizard uranium in Alberta. This spawned the usual stories Lake and Bonnie Glen. Ken presented of swarms of blood-thirsty bugs and this work as part of the 50th anniversary stranded vehicles in the back country. of the Leduc discovery (1997), including a “submarine view” animation navigating One aspect of Ken’s life that is WE HAVE LOST through a 3D rendering of the Leducincreasingly rare, is that he spent his NOT JUST AN Rimbey chain – like a Devonian armoured entire career with one company -Imperial ACCOMPLISHED fish might have done. During these years, Oil – primarily as an exploration and Ken was a stalwart of Esso’s running GEOLOGIST BUT, development geologist. He began on the teams, including a few memorable BanffGlauconitic exploration team in 1982, TO SO MANY, A Jasper relays. then moved – after a year’s sabbatical GENEROUS AND trip around the world (the “karma tour”) Ken’s growing experience led to an LOYAL FRIEND. - into what would become the focus of assignment at Exxon Production REST IN PEACE. his career, carbonate reservoirs. Part of Research Company lab (now ExxonMobil) a growing group of carbonate workers at in Houston, to its team of carbonate Imperial, mentored by (amongst others) experts. Work there included a unique Jack Wendte and Frank Stoakes, Ken project on lacustrine carbonates in the remote Tarim was assigned to the first cross-functional team in the Basin in western China, colliding with many unfamiliar corporation. A group of young geologists were matched cultural and culinary practices (“we see the feet, where’s with reservoir and production engineers to develop optimal the rest of the chicken?”). He completed a comprehensive depletion strategies for Esso’s carbonate reservoirs. This study of Kuwaiti Jurassic reservoirs, their diagenesis was followed by work on the Paleozoic exploration team and fracture development, and taught a number of field prospecting in the Swan Hills/Beaverhill Lake of the Deep schools. The latter included his role as “dean” of the Basin, and investigating Swan Hills dolomite distribution Reservoir Geology for Engineers school, which he led for with Exxon Production Research. several years.

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Later in his career, Ken spearheaded Imperial’s efforts in Devonian gas/liquid-bearing mud rocks. This included major projects on the Horn River and Canol shales. He organized a large field program for the latter, describing and sampling classic outcrops around Norman Wells, N.W.T. Colleagues appreciated his insistence on a proper outfitter to manage the camp and the appetites of the crew. Ken’s team developed an innovative technique defining seismic inversion volumes and attributes for mudstone lithofacies within a fully integrated corelog-seismic stratigraphic framework. This formed the foundation of Imperial’s successful exploration effort. Ken shared his profound knowledge by mentoring and training countless colleagues. He led in-house and industry field trips to the Canadian Rockies, notably in the Nordegg (Cline Channel) area. He also organized one infamously soggy Exxon expedition to the Miette reef to map the size and distribution of dolomite geobodies. To this were added frequent core sessions with novice through senior colleagues. In the 1980s he was instrumental in securing Esso’s funding for the Devonian reef diorama at the Royal Tyrell Museum. For many years, visitors could see Ken in the (somewhat cheesy) video that accompanied the exhibit.

and authoring important publications. He presented the Beaverhill Lake Group, as part of the first sequence stratigraphic interpretation of the Alberta Upper Devonian, at the AAPG conference (1992), later published in the Bulletin of Petroleum Geology (2001) with Ken as first author. With Pak Wong, he used the first generation of digital Canstrat data to map the stratigraphic distribution of dolomite in the Alberta Frasnian (1995), postulating an evaporite-related reflux model for its origin. He later bolstered this interpretation with an analysis of published isotopic data for these dolomites (2002). More recent work on mud rocks with ExxonMobil colleagues was presented at multiple conferences including IPTC in Beijing and is now in press (AAPG Memoir 126). A measure of the high esteem in which Ken was held by both colleagues and management was his receiving ExxonMobil’s highest recognition for geoscientists, the Peter Vail Award (2012). Lastly, Ken was leading the Woodbend chapter for the new Atlas of the Western Canada Sedimentary Atlas. His several months work will be taken up by the team, who will sorely miss his contributions and companionship. The chapter will be dedicated to him.

IN MEMORY

His next expat assignment was a secondment to RasGas, developing ExxonMobil’s interest in the North Field in Qatar – deemed the largest gas field in the world. According to colleagues, his expertise in carbonate reservoir evaluation were critical in the development of the field, particularly in understanding the depositional and diagenetic history of the Permian Khuff reservoir, as well as controls on gas saturation. A champion of integration, he worked closely with geophysicists, petrophysicists, and reservoir engineers, creating an open sharing environment, of benefit to all. He logged core in a sweltering, poorly ventilated Quonset hut, the only consolation being the spectacular rock, including a perfectly preserved PermianTriassic boundary, with associated breccia. Ken made the most of the Doha posting, finding many new friends, traveling extensively, and creatively eluding certain rules around dietary contraband.

Witty and fun-loving, Ken was also a man of strong intellect and firm principles - which he put into practise. For example, he was responsible for having an ablution station installed in the RasGas building in Doha, allowing his Muslim co-workers to prepare for prayers. He visited workers in the camps in Qatar, bringing them gifts and inspiration, once buying a dozen or so thawbs (a traditional local garment) for the workers in blue overalls. This allowed them to enter the shopping malls, from which they were typically barred, on their only day off. To end, no summary of professional achievements can capture the character of this gifted and complex individual. Ken’s passion for the arts, his love of nature, travel, photography, and his compassion and ethical compass, were truly unique. We have lost not just an accomplished geologist but, to so many, a generous and loyal friend. Rest in peace. John Weissenberger (with thanks to colleagues from across the globe).

His “lack” of post-graduate education didn’t prevent him from developing formidable expertise in carbonate geology

RESERVOIR ISSUE 3 • MAY/JUN 2022

CSPG HONORARY MEMBER AWARD David P. James January 2022

Dr David Paul James 40+ years in the Petroleum Industry, conducting worldwide geologic studies, mentoring generations of earth scientists, promoting the use of core studies and through many activities for the Society is welcomed into CSPG Honorary Membership. Calgary for a BSc (Hons) in 1975 and an MSc in 1977 under David was born in 1946 in Adelaide Australia, the Shiraz capital Dr Tom Oliver. Exciting opportunities for education and work in of the world, so he claims. Growing up in Melbourne, David Calgary encouraged David to put down more permanent roots completed a four-year, diploma level, electronics course in TV in Canada. He began his geological career at Esso/Imperial Oil & Radio Ops. At age 21, his passion for radio communication working with Dr. Perry Glaister. Shortly thereafter, with Esso’s and adventure opened an unexpected door, being selected for a endorsement, David won a scholarship to commence Doctoral 15-month scientific expedition to Macquarie Island, Antarctica. studies under Dr Harold Reading at Oxford University. Upon He was the youngest member of the wintering party; one of his return to Canada, David was promoted through the ranks two Radio Technicians and morse code operators. It was at ultimately to manage Esso’s Research and Technology group. Macquarie Island that David was introduced to geophysical, geologic, and biological studies. Upon his return to Australia in David went on to hold positions of Chief Geologist, Chief 1969, David and his mates departed for Geoscientist at Saskoil/Wascana Energy, the “mandatory” Europe circuit. When Renaissance/Husky Energy and finally the money ran out, he landed work with Anadarko Canada. Over the decades he Marconi as one of their last ship-going recruited 100’s of G/G at all levels of Radio Officers on a bulk carrier and experience. David was part of a group large tanker, transporting coal and crude of earth scientists who enthusiastically David’s contribution oil from points in Africa and Europe to promoted the use of core work to help with to facies geology and Britain. This was his first point of contact exploration and exploitation projects. Facies sequence stratigraphy, with the Global Energy Industry geology had become popular in the 1970’s Still intending to return to Oz from Europe, David visited Canada in 1971 because he had heard there was opportunity for seismic work in our Northern wilderness. As he likes to tell people, he arrived with a Grade 10 formal education, less than $1000 in his pocket and a smile on his face. The smile lasted until he landed in Calgary in early January. As he had hoped, his electronics background immediately translated into a whopping $2/hour job with Ray Geophysical as an Observer in the high Arctic. This experience provided funds to complete his formal high school education and gain entrance to the University of

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his passionate teaching, mentoring and critical applications of earth science, promoting the importance of the world class ERCB Core Research Centre and for his support of the CSPG David is an outstanding recipient of the CSPG Honorary Member Award.

followed by Sequence Stratigraphy in the 1980’s. David became a champion of both disciplines. In addition to his extensive experience in the Western Canadian Basin, McKenzie Delta and East Coast, David spent many years in the international arena, especially north Africa, the Middle East and UK. In addition to his corporate responsibilities, David’s CSPG activities included chairing the Thesis Reading Committee (198688), co-chairing two major symposia each resulting in the publication of CSPG Memoirs which he co-edited, (#15 and #18). Memoir 15 is still historically the bestselling CSPG publication. He found it

amusing that Memoir 15 was recently selling for over $350 on Amazon when more than thirty years earlier, delegates received the Memoir as part of their $100 symposium entrance fee. Under the CSPG banner David led and co-led numerous field trips, core conferences, luncheon presentations and short courses generating much necessary revenues for the Society. He could usually be counted upon to provide corporate sponsorship of the annual Core Meltdowns and supported academics for research projects. Over the decades, David won: the CSPG Best Doctoral Study Award (1985); the Link Award for best luncheon talk (1985); the President’s Award (1989) for co-chairing and co-editing the “Sequences, Stratigraphy, Sedimentology Surface and Sub-Surface (“S-5”) Symposium and it’s associated Memoir 15; a Service Award (1990) for chairing the thesis committee; the Tracks Award (1997) for co-chairing and co-editing the Petroleum Geology of the Mannville Group Symposium and it’s associated Memoir 18. David was also granted several CSPG Distinguished Lecture Tours at Universities across Canada. For almost as long as Agatha Christie’s “Mousetrap” ran in London, David conducted his venerable Clastics Exploration

school. Over the decades, his classes were taught several times a year at the ERCB Core Centre, to the benefit of over 1000 delegates. This was Calgary’s longest running clastics exploration short course; David constantly updated it to keep it fresh and fun. On a few special occasions his classes were attended by 2 generations of the same family. Into his semi-retirement years, he continued to co-lead a widely acclaimed field trip (Nautilus’ M-42) in Colorado wherein delegates from around the world were taught facies and sequence stratigraphic exploration techniques. His wicked use of simplified nomenclature to reduce sequence stratigraphic confusion is reportedly still a source of amusement by many delegates. His final acts for the benefit of the CSPG occurred in 2017 and 2018, when he returned to Calgary’s Core Research center to teach two sessions of his exploration school gratis to the Society. David’s contribution to facies geology and sequence stratigraphy, his passionate teaching, mentoring and critical applications of earth science, promoting the importance of the world class ERCB Core Research Centre and for his support of the CSPG David is an outstanding recipient of the CSPG Honorary Member Award.

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN

We encourage participants from academia, industry, government, and students to share 7W Xresearch. 4.5H The committee invites contributions the latest advances in carbonate-related from the following broad themes: Dolomitization New Integrative Methods Paleoenvironmental Indicators Inorganic Precipitated Carbonates Organic Precipitated Carbonates

Geochemistry and Diagenesis Big Data and Machine Learning Bold New Ideas Resources in Carbonates

WWW.CSPG.ORG/MOUNTJOY

RESERVOIR ISSUE 3 • MAY/JUN 2022

From the Desk of the AER Tyler E. Hauck and Dan Palombi

Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage:

Returning to Alberta’s Geology for Reducing Carbon Emissions

The geological sequestration of CO2 as a strategy for decarbonizing Canada’s petroleum industry is receiving significant attention for multiple reasons including Canada’s net-zero by 2050 goal. Economic drivers include anticipated greenhouse gas taxation schemes (currently $50/tonne as a federal backstop minimum with a proposed increase to $170/tonne by 2030), and the potential for clean hydrogen as a fuel alternative with minimal emissions. Alberta is already the largest producer of hydrogen in Canada, and for significant transformation of our energy supply, large-scale sequestration of CO2 produced from the steam-methane reforming or autothermal reforming processes on natural gas feedstock will be required.

To facilitate the large-scale sequestration of CO2, in March 2021 the Alberta government rolled out a Request for Full Project Proposals (RFPP) for the creation of carbon capture and sequestration “hubs” across the province. From December 2021 to February 2022, the province requested RFPPs specifically for the Industrial Heartland region northeast of Edmonton, which contains many of the province’s large industrial emitters. The CO2 sequestration hubs will comprise privately led facilities located in strategic areas that allow access to sequestration-quality pore space for emitters of CO2 gases. On March 31st, the government announced that six of the submitted proposals had been selected for further evaluation.

In 2021, the AGS initiated a CCUS project that aims to provide an enhanced understanding of the CO2 storage resource potential in central Alberta (Figure 1). This project involves the geological characterization of the Leduc-Ireton storage complex, covering many of the active to depleted conventional oil and gas reservoirs within Upper Devonian Leduc Formation reef complexes. This work builds upon previous AGS basin-scale suitability studies identifying central Alberta as “extremely suitable” for CCUS (Bachu et al., 2000), and emulates an important study in the Michigan Basin looking at Silurian pinnacle reefs (Haagsma et al., 2020).

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) plays a significant role in the approval of Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) projects (AER-CCUS). Only projects that meet Alberta’s rigorous safety and environmental standards will be approved, as noted in the March 31st press release. Beyond current CCUS projects such as Shell’s Quest (dedicated sequestration) and Enhance Energy’s Clive Field CO2-EOR project, Alberta has a long history of safe subsurface disposal of greenhouse gases in the form of acid gas (CO2 + H2S) disposal. Acid gas disposal has been successfully regulated by the AER in Alberta since 1990 (Bachu et al., 2008). Considering that acid gas contains CO2, studies undertaken by the Alberta Geological Survey (AGS) have used these disposal schemes as an analogue to the safe and secure geological storage of CO2 within Alberta (Bachu and Gunter, 2004).

OUR PROJECT INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING COMPONENTS:

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• Comprehensive mapping of the stratigraphic succession from the top of the Beaverhill Lake Group to the sub-Cretaceous unconformity (Figure 1). • Development of a static 3D geologic model with focussed efforts on replicating the morphology of the Leduc reef complexes. • A multi-faceted approach to quantifying CO¬2 resource estimates within the Leduc reefs based on the application of multiple established methodologies. • A petrophysical (including Vsh) and geomechanical analysis of the Ireton Formation caprock over the Leduc reefs, to better understand caprock integrity.

FIGURE 1 Study area (red outline) for the sub-regional characterization of the Leduc-Ireton storage complex in central Alberta, and schematic table of stratigraphy (A– Aˈ). Well control (6004) are black dots (horizontal wells have a linear component). Leduc reef outlines in blue. Numbers (1) and (2) in red circles denote the Enhance Clive CO¬2-EOR and Shell Quest projects, respectively. Abbreviations: ACTL, Alberta Carbon Trunk Line; BVL, Beaverhill Lake; WTB, Winterburn; Miss., Mississippian; Cretac., Cretaceous; Duv., Duvernay.

• An assessment of supplemental (secondary and tertiary) seals to the storage complex in the form of Upper Devonian evaporite sequences (Figure 1). • The creation of a “Leduc Reef Atlas” that aims to present CO2 resource estimates and compile relevant information and data needed for resource estimation methodologies. For assessing the potential storage volume a variety of methodologies are being evaluated. One method, known as “fluid-substitution” assesses the amount of produced fluids and initial reservoir conditions to estimate the volume of CO2 that could be stored within a given hydrocarbon pool above the hydrocarbon-water contact. This methodology relies predominantly on historical production data and does not require significant geological characterization. Two complimentary methods developed by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Energy Technology Laboratory are also being evaluated: the oil and gas reservoir volumetric method, and the saline aquifer method (Peck et al., 2021). Both methods require at minimum the storage reservoir thickness, areal extent, and porosity. The former method considers parameters specific to hydrocarbon reservoirs, whereas the saline aquifer method is applicable below the oil-water contact and in water-saturated systems without residual hydrocarbons. By employing the three different methodologies, we intend to show that the Leduc reef complexes comprise both considerable hydrocarbon pools amenable to possible CO2-EOR, and a much more extensive saline aquifer within the reefs across the study area. The CO2 resource estimates will provide stakeholders with a formation-scale understanding of sequestration-quality pore space and will facilitate more detailed evaluation of Leduc reefs in central Alberta by interested parties. Concurrently, the geological and geomechanical characterization, in addition to the CO2 volumetrics, will support the regulator in its evaluation of CCUS applications.

REFERENCES Bachu, S. and Gunter, W.D. (2004). Acid-gas injection in the Alberta Basin, Canada: a CO2-storage experience. Geological Society of London. Special Publication 233, p. 225–234. Bachu, S., Buschkuehle, M., Haug, K. and Michael, K. (2008). Subsurface characterization of the Edmonton-area acid-gas injection operations. Energy Resources Conservation Board, ERCB/AGS Special Report 092, 134 p. Bachu., S., Brulotte, M., Grobe, M. and Stewart, S. (2000). Suitability of the Alberta subsurface for carbon-dioxide sequestration in geological media. Alberta Energy and Utilities Board/Alberta Geological Survey Earth Sciences Report 2000-11, 88 p. Haagsma, A., Main, J., Pasumarti, A., Valluri, M., Scharenberg, A., Larsen, G., Goodman, W., Conner, A., Cotter, Z., Keister, L., Harrison, W., Mishra, S., Pardini, R. and Gupta, N. (2020). A comparison of carbon dioxide storage resource estimate methodologies for a regional assessment of the Northern Niagaran Pinnacle Reef Trend in the Michigan Basin. Environmental Geosciences, v. 27, p. 9-23. DOI: 10.1206/eg.11051919019 Peck, W., Battle, E., Suedel, K., Glazewski, K. (2021). PCOR Partnership Atlas (Sixth Edition). University of North Dakota Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC). https://undeerc.org/pcor/Resources. aspx#Atlas n

RESERVOIR ISSUE 3 • MAY/JUN 2022

CSPG HONORARY MEMBER AWARD Leslie Samuel Eliuk Dr. Leslie (Les) Eliuk, carbonate specialist, petroleum geologist and consultant, is best known for his seminal scientific contributions on the Jurassic Abenaki carbonate margin, offshore Nova Scotia, and its related geological setting. Dr. Eliuk has been a long time active member, an exuberant volunteer, as well as a substantive contributor to the meetings and publications of the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists. Les as he is widely known, is renowned for his smile, and his self-deprecating humour whenever he is asking questions about geology, especially in discussions over rocks in core or on an outcrop. A lifelong learner with a gregarious, outgoing personality, he has consistently shared his knowledge and expertise with his colleagues, especially with younger geologists and students. Dr. Leslie Eliuk is an outstanding example of a technical specialist, geological advisor, teacher, a champion of promoting knowledge transfer, and a long time active Society member, so it is with pride that we welcome him into CSPG Honorary Membership. Les Eliuk graduated in 1968 Magna cum laude from the University of Alberta with an Honours Bachelor of Science degree split between Geology and Zoology. Afterwards he remained at U of A to finish his MSc. in an astounding nine months. His thesis on the “Age of the Entrance Conglomerate by Palynology” was supervised by Professor Charlie Stelck. His summer jobs were spent assisting in fieldwork in such diverse areas as on Ellef Ringnes Island, in the Yukon and the North Slope, and in Alberta. Those early experiences taught Les the value of studying rocks in outcrop and confirmed within him a love for the outdoors. In 1969 Les joined Shell Canada/Resources, and during his 30 year career there he stayed within the technical stream, rising from Geologist to Geological Advisor. Over those three decades, he became a well-known carbonate geologist through numerous in-house work projects on ancient carbonates in eastern and western Canada, as well as through training via inhouse and external courses, and exposure to modern and ancient carbonates around the globe. Throughout his career Dr. Eliuk has been dedicated to learning all aspects of carbonate geology. He has developed a particular interest and expertise for understanding reefs of all ages, as well as a keen interest in dolomitization and associated sour gas origins, particularly as seen in cores, and where possible in combination with outcrops. Although Dr. Eliuk worked for Shell on numerous Devonian and other carbonate projects, mainly in the Foothills and adjacent areas of Alberta, his

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pioneering work early in his career on the geology of Jurassic-Cretaceous carbonates, offshore Nova Scotia spawned a life time interest in those rocks. After retiring from Shell, he formed GeoTours Consulting Inc. This allowed Les to continue providing his carbonate expertise to companies working in Alberta, and for companies working offshore Nova Scotia who wanted the benefit of his carbonate and petroleum knowledge. Much of this latter work has been based on core and sample logging while the former included guiding field trips and outcrop studies. Dr. Eliuk has always been keen to discuss either his own or someone else’s geological interpretations, especially if it is over the actual rocks as seen in cores or in outcrop. It is therefore not too surprising that he has contributed many times to core events for the CSPG and other technical societies. He chaired the 1984 core conference on “Carbonates in Subsurface and Outcrop”, which produced not only a highly successful event but also a staggering 300 page guidebook! As for outcrops, for decades Les led a comprehensive field trip to the Upper Devonian Cripple Creek reef edge in the Alberta Front Ranges - first for in-house Shell geologists and summer students, then as a fieldtrip associated with conferences, and later for training purposes for other petroleum companies. Regarding his interest in reefs, he took a lead as the Mesozoic Recent reef convener for the CSPG Reef Inventory Project and was a major contributor to the resulting Memoir 13 “Reefs in Canada and Adjacent Areas”. In 1992 he chaired the U of A - CSPG Banff Conference on Dolomites. In 1997, based on joint fieldwork with Chevron, he was a co-author winning the best convention poster award for a poster describing a Swan Hills reef margin and bioerosion in outcrop. Les likes to point out that his 1978 paper on the Abenaki margin published in the CSPG Bulletin, while being given an honourable mention for the Medal of Merit, was also notable for being nearly 90 pages in length, undoubtedly a record for length. Volunteerism has always been a part of Dr. Eliuk’s life. He believes by doing so there is an opportunity for encouraging technical excellence, and for promoting the transfer of technical knowledge and information. Most importantly Les has always felt volunteering is not onerous because it allows one to do what one enjoys anyway with enjoyable folks. Within the CSPG he has chaired the Sedimentology Division, been a member on the Board selecting topics for the U of A - CSPG Banff National Conference on the

Earth Sciences, as well as an author, speaker, poster session contributor, and fieldtrip leader. Besides receiving CSPG Service and Volunteer Awards, his volunteer efforts were recognized by three Tracks Awards, and in 2004, he became the first recipient, along with Dr. Clint Tippett, of the CSPG H.M. Hunter Award. A CSPG member since 1969, Dr. Eliuk has remarkably served on the CSPG Graduate Thesis Awards Committee for over four decades, only stepping away in the year his own Ph.D. dissertation was being considered for the award.

Volunteerism has always been a part of Dr. Eliuk’s life. He believes by doing so there is an opportunity for encouraging technical excellence, and for promoting the transfer of technical knowledge and information.

According to Dr. Eliuk, just to show how folks slowdown in their old age, he points out that in contrast to the nine months it took to finish his MSc., it took over nine years to finally complete his PhD at Dalhousie University in 2016. His dissertation, not surprisingly, was on the “Abenaki Carbonate Margin as Affected by the Sable Island Delta” and was supervised by Professor Grant Wach. Dr. Eliuk was pleased that his thesis put a lifetime’s worth of study and data for Shell and other operators on offshore Nova Scotia carbonates into the public domain. Associated with that effort and after, Les chaired two Atlantic Conjugate Margin Conferences core workshops, and has given over 30 related talks or poster presentations in Canada, USA and Portugal.

After participating in the 2005 CSPG-GAC meeting in Halifax, Les and his wife Velvet bought a lovely house in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia on a whim and just for a ‘little while’. Today they still live in it, as well they split their time with Alberta where his daughter Jana and her two children and his son Cory, wife Kari and four children live. Definitely a more relaxed lifestyle from when he and his wife raised twenty eight foster children while living in Calgary.

Today Dr. Eliuk continues to give talks and devotes part of his time (and some money) to flying drones to study a Carboniferous algal reef in Cape Breton. Throughout his life he has advocated that "a sense of humour is one of the most important things you should take in camping, fieldwork, and maybe life”. Maybe this is why he wrote an article on “petrified beaverdams“ - tufas and seep deposits as truly Canadian reefs. Dr. Eliuk’s significant contributions to Canadian carbonate geology, his passion for volunteering, interacting with people to share geological knowledge and information, championing lively geological discussions particularly over cores or on the outcrop, makes him an excellent recipient of the CSPG Honorary Member Award.

Award Recipient Interview

RESERVOIR ISSUE 3 • MAY/JUN 2022

2021 CSPG GRADUATE THESIS AWARD

M.SC. HONORABLE MENTION

Cole Ross The recipient of the Honorable Mention for best M.Sc. thesis award for 2021 is Cole Ross. His thesis, entitled “The Sedimentology and Stratigraphy of the Lower Cretaceous Clearwater Formation at Marten Hills and Nipisi, Alberta, Canada”, was supervised by Dr. Murray K. Gingras at the University of Alberta. Funding for this research was provided by MainSail Energy in addition to the Mitacs Accelerate program. Additional technical data and support was provided by Woodcote Oil and Gas, Spur Petroleum, and Cenovus Energy. Cole received Graduate Fellowships in 2018 and 2019 and was the recipient of the “2019 CSPG Core Conference Best Student Presentation Award”. Cole earned his M.Sc from the department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta in June, 2021. He also worked prior to his master’s research as a Geologist in Training (GIT) at various oil and gas companies in Calgary, Alberta which included both scientific and technical roles. His research project at the University of Alberta focused on developing a stratigraphic framework and high-resolution facies characterization of the Clearwater Formation in Marten Hills and Nipisi to better understand reservoir heterogeneity. This geological interval in central Alberta is sparsely characterized but is currently experiencing rapid exploration and development efforts using cold flow multilateral drilling techniques making this research timely. Cole is passionate about exploring and finding new reservoirs as well as providing contributions to the industry through his research focused on detailed geologic analysis that incorporates wireline log attributes with sedimentology, ichnology, and core derived observations to further industries understandings of marginal marine sandbodies.

FIGURE 1 Marten Hills and Nipisi are located within central Alberta and are situated between the downdip deep-basin production and the updip oilsands and SAGD projects

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The Lower Cretaceous Clearwater Formation (Albian) is observed within the Mannville Group and in the study area comprises two members (the Wabiskaw Member and the newly proposed Marten Hills Member). Marten Hills and Nipisi are located within central Alberta and are situated between the downdip deep-basin production and the updip oilsands and SAGD projects (Figure 1). Historically, the Marten Hills and Nipisi regions were recognized as hydrocarbon bearing reservoirs. However, prior operator attempts at horizontal fracturing and vertical drilling were unsuccessful given the lower permeability

Five key reference localities were utilized across the region to demonstrate wireline log signatures for different stratigraphic intervals and their corresponding core attributes

and higher viscosity oil found in Clearwater reservoirs. Recent exploration efforts, through the implementation of open hole multi-lateral horizontal drilling, have revitalized the Marten Hills and Nipisi production areas. Marginal marine sandstone reservoirs locally exceed 30 metres in thickness and exhibit hydrocarbon properties of 12-24 API and viscosities that range between <250 to 4000cP. The Clearwater Formation within the study region lacks scientific literature aside from a study conducted by Bradley and Pemberton in 1992, which analyzed the Wabiskaw Member ichnofossil assemblage. Given the increased exploration efforts in the region and lack of scientific literature, the thesis was designed to address a gap in industry knowledge through a detailed sedimentologic, ichnologic, and stratigraphic analysis to better understand the depositional processes that dominated deposition in the region. Over 60 cored intervals and 3,250 vertical well logs were evaluated across the study area. This allowed for a detailed stratigraphic framework and newly proposed stratigraphic architecture (Marten Hills Member) to be developed for the area.

sedimentary structures were rarely preserved due to the high degrees of biogenic reworking associated with ambient marine environments (Gingras et al., 2011). Storm dominated shoreface environments conversely display evidence of high energy deposition associated with tempestites with the occurrence of unbioturbated microHummocky Cross Stratified beds. Deltaic deposits were characterized by evidence of rapid sedimentation, and the presence of weakly bioturbated muds and fluid mud deposits (Figure 3). The abundance of low angle planar bedding (LAP) within the delta deposits is interpreted as emblematic of wave-dominated deltas. Ichnologic attributes also varied from the offshore to shoreface environment as the Cruziana and Skolithos ichnofacies respectively, whereas the prodelta and delta front settings manifested the Phycosiphon and Rosselia ichnofacies (MacEachern and Bann 2020). Finally, transgressive shoreline deposits are common throughout the Marten Hills region and most notably observed by the abundance of glauconite deposits, transgressive lags, and occurrences of the Glossifungites Ichnofacies.

A primary goal of the thesis was to provide a thorough analysis of an understudied region using detailed core analysis and extensive wireline log interpretations. Five key reference localities were utilized across the region to demonstrate wireline log signatures for different stratigraphic intervals and their corresponding core attributes (Figure 2). To adequately represent the sedimentological variability observed, a detailed facies scheme was established that identified four recurring facies associations. These facies associations included: Fairweather shoreface, stormdominated shoreface, transgressive shoreline, and wavedominated delta. Fairweather conditions were noted in the lower shoreface to offshore strata where physical

The thesis also proposes a new stratigraphic nomenclature for the Clearwater Formation above the Wabiskaw Member that uses marine flooding surfaces (mFs) to isolate each cleaning upwards trend or parasequence (Van Wagoner et al., 1988; Van Wagoner et al., 1990). A series of regional cross-sections were constructed to the east and tied into scientific literature conducted in both the Cold Lake and Athabasca oilsands regions through the work of Hathaway (2016). Once regional flooding events were identified, a stratigraphic correlation was interpreted using core observations to provide a more detailed understanding of how reservoir sandstones throughout the study region changed along depositional strike and dip. Two main

2021 CSPG GRADUATE THESIS AWARD

FIGURE 2

RESERVOIR ISSUE 3 • MAY/JUN 2022

2021 CSPG GRADUATE THESIS AWARD

sandbodies (Marten Hills Member B and C) were defined in a series of regional maps and demonstrated how internal stratigraphic complexity varies across the study region for both the MRTN B and C sandstones. Given the lack of scientific literature in this interval, detailed analyses of the sedimentology, ichnology, and stratigraphic distribution of reservoir sandstones was critical to lay the foundation for future work. This study demonstrated that detailed core evaluation is pertinent to accurately understand complex depositional environments, especially on the scale of the Marten Hills and Nipisi reservoir fairways. Through detailed stratigraphic correlation, reservoir architecture was more accurately depicted allowing for a more detailed understanding of facies distribution both along depositional strike and dip. This work should provide a framework that could assist future oil development in the region. FIGURE 3 Deltaic deposits were characterized by evidence of rapid sedimentation, and the presence of weakly bioturbated muds and fluid mud deposits

Award Recipient Interview

REFERENCES: Bradley, T.L. and Pemberton, S.G., 1992. Examples of Ichnofossil assemblages in the lower Cretaceous Wabiskaw Member and the Clearwater Formation of the Marten Hills gas field, north-central Alberta, Canada. Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM) Applications of Ichnology to Petroleum Exploration (CW17), pp. 383-399. Gingras, M.K., MacEachern, J.A. and Dashtgard, S.E., 2011. Process ichnology and the elucidation of physico-chemical stress. Sedimentary Geology. v. 237, pp. 115-134. Hathaway, B., 2016. Regional subsurface mapping of the Clearwater Formation, Lower Cretaceous, Northeast Alberta. abstract. AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition.

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MacEachern, J.A. and Bann, K.L., 2020. The Phycosiphon ichnofacies and the Rosselia ichnofacies; two new ichnofacies for marine deltaic environments, Journal of Sedimentary Research, v. 90, (8), pp. 855-886. Van Wagoner, J.P., Posamentier, H.W., Mitchum, R.M., Vail, P.R., Sarg, J.F., Loutit, T.S. and Hardenbol, J., 1988. An overview of the fundamentals of sequence stratigraphy and key definitions, In Wilgus, C.K., Hasting, B.S., Kendall, C.G. St.C., Posamentier, H.W., Ross, C.A., Van Wagoner, J.C., eds., Sea-Level Changes- An Integrated Approach: SEPM Special Publication, v. 42, pp. 39-45. Van Wagoner, J.C., Mitchum, R.M., Campion, K.M. and Rahmanian, V.D., 1990. Siliciclastic sequence stratigraphy in well logs, cores, and outcrops: concepts for high-resolution correlation of time and facies: AAPG Methods in Exploration 7. AAPG, Tulsa.

P.Geol., Co-Founder, GeoWomen of Calgary

Mandy M. Williams, P.Geol., has been working as a geologist in the petroleum industry for the past 18 years. Her experience covers conventional and unconventional reservoirs within the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin and has focused for the last many years on the Mississippian carbonates of the Williston Basin. Ms. Williams is currently the Senior Geologist at Burgess Creek Exploration, building a light-oil focused company through internally generated prospects in southeast Saskatchewan.

2021 TRACKS AWARD

Mandy M. Williams,

In 2014, Mandy Williams co-founded GeoWomen of Calgary with one of her mentors, Jocelyn Keith-Asante (1993 Tracks Award Winner), a grass-roots organization established with the idea of providing a place to network and share successes of the women in geoscience professions in Calgary. When their first event, held at the Devonian Gardens on a cold, February night, attracted over 70 women, they realized just how keen women in the industry were to connect with one another. One of the CSPG’s three goals, is to develop a sense of community for all geoscientists, and in 2017, GeoWomen of Calgary became a committee of the CSPG, which Mandy co-chairs, providing further opportunity and reach to support and promote women as members of the CSPG. GeoWomen is focused on three founding pillars: Recruitment, Retention and Recognition. They hold a monthly Speaker Series on topics ranging from Critical Minerals and Sustainable Energy, to APEGA’s WAGE Grant Study (Women and Gender Equality Canada): “Women in the Workplace: A Shift in Industry Work Culture”. In May 2022, they will be hosting Board Ready Women, for a talk entitled “Positioning Yourself to Sit on a Board”. Everyone is welcome to attend and registration is through the CSPG. Mandy’s efforts have helped strengthen our geoscience community and have established a welcoming and supportive environment for women, and everyone else, in the geosciences through her work with GeoWomen of Calgary. Besides her position with GeoWomen, Mandy also volunteers on the CSPG Thesis Award Committee and has volunteered as a CSEG Mentor for 5 years, where in 2020, she was named the “2020 CSEG Mentor of the Year”. Her passion in supporting others is also evidenced by her nomination of mentees and colleagues for various scholarships and awards. She has generously nominated or provided letters of reference for her past mentees, several of whom have received awards and scholarships through her efforts, including: The Alberta Women in STEM scholarship, the L. Austin Weeks Grant and the Persons Case Scholarship. Her nominees were also selected as recipients of the CSPG 2020 Stanley Slipper Gold Medal and the 2021 CSPG Patricia J. Lee Trailblazer Award. Of note, the Patricia J. Lee Trailblazer Award is the first CSPG award named after a woman. This award was established in 2021, in a collaborative effort between the CSPG and GeoWomen committee members. Although this award is meant to be awarded to someone who has made “tracks” for others to follow, Mandy would rather be recognized as someone who had instead built a community for others to feel welcomed into. The career journey for a woman in energy can sometimes be a lonely trek. By building and supporting the community of strong, dedicated women we have in our industry, Mandy has certainly made that journey feel a little more welcoming and engaging.

RESERVOIR ISSUE 3 • MAY/JUN 2022

The Blue View: Industry Trends Through Woodmac’s Lens NORTH AMERICA IN CONTEXT: OVERARCHING THEMES ACROSS THE INDUSTRY CARBON 1. CANADIAN CAPTURE INVESTMENT

TAX CREDIT ANNOUNCED

DU NORD PROJECT 2. BAY RECEIVES FEDERAL APPROVAL

RESERVE (SPR) 3. PETROLEUM RELEASE AIMS TO LESSEN BIDEN’S STRATEGIC SUPPLY CRUNCH

CANADA: n Canada carbon investment tax credit clarity

On 7 April 2022, the Canadian government announced an investment tax credit for carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) projects. The tax credit is set to take effect immediately with distinct levels of credit for capital costs as follows: • Direct air capture (DAC): 60% • All other carbon capture and storage (CCS): 50% • Transportation, storage, and use: 37.5% These tax pools have an 8% depreciation per year for capital spending, while eligible uses of carbon have a 20% per year depreciation schedule. The credit received after 2030 is halved to 30% for DAC, 25% for CCS and 18.75% for transport and storage projects; the tax pools maintain the same depreciation schedule of 8% and 20% as above. Notably, credits can be claimed on eligible expenses regardless of when the equipment becomes available for use. Further clarity on the tax credit is expected in the federal fall update. A clear stipulation in the announcement is that enhanced oil recovery will not be an eligible use of carbon. For the growing list of CCUS project proponents in Canada, the newly announced tax credit is welcome. The lead-time required to successfully navigate the regulatory and development of a large-scale project is several years. Comments from industry stakeholders have been positive, despite not meeting the 75% of capital spend that had been targeted, nor the direct granting of credits. To gain a rough perspective of the impact of such a tax credit, we added it to one of our CCS economic models, created for a largescale, fully integrated (capture, transport, storage) CCS project: capturing more than 5 Mtpa, online in 2026, and estimated at 10.0% pre-tax, unlevered IRR. The result was an increase in project IRR to 13.8%, equivalent to a decrease in levelized cost of carbon capture, transport, and storage (LCOCCS) from US$81 to US$70 per tonne — indeed a sizeable, if not transformational, impact on project feasibility. Keep in mind of course that economics vary widely across CCS projects, and most are today “uninvestible”

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given insufficient and uncertain government incentives to reduce emissions, in Canada and beyond. The Oil Sands Pathways group had planned to reduce emissions by 21Mt by 2030, through CCUS and other measures (between 8.5Mtpa and 10Mtpa of CCUS capacity was targeted). The halving of credits after 2030 may change their plans and advance capital allocation for earlier expansion. (The Pathways group targets up to 40 Mtpa of CCUS by 2040.) The lack of inclusion of EOR will certainly impact the evolution of CCS in Western Canada and hinder Canadian EOR production competitiveness versus US producers, who receive EOR credits through 45Q. This limitation of the credits was not a surprising inclusion given government messaging over the past year. n Vermilion enters Montney with Leucrotta

acquisition

Vermilion Energy announced the acquisition of Leucrotta Resources, a public listed Canadian Junior Producer on 28 March 2022. Vermilion acquires early stage Montney development within the Mica property, which straddles the border between NE British Columbia and Alberta. Vermilion has been acquisitive but this marks its first major move into the Montney play. Most other Montney deals over past three years have been consolidation moves from existing Montney producers. Vermilion is paying Cdn$480 million (US$378 million) in cash for the 81,000 acres (77,000 net acres) Mica asset. The Mica asset is early in its development, with multiple decades of development potential. As part of the acquisition, Leucrotta will spin out an exploration company on the Two Rivers asset, to the immediate west and north of the Mica asset. The assets are divided by the Peace River, which forms a physiographic barrier for development. The Two Rivers asset is 89,600 acres (76,600 net acres) with existing production of 400 boe/d. The explorco is well capitalized, with approximately Cdn$85 million. The Two Rivers asset is relatively undrilled, and will require multiple years to derisk and grow production. Leucrotta believe it will produce close to 30,000 boe/d within 5 years. As part of the deal, Vermilion will retain a 13% equity ownership in the explorco.

Vermilion enters Montney with Leucrotta acquisition Source: Wood Mackenzie, geoLOGIC Solutions Ltd.

n Bay du Nord receives federal approval to proceed

Bay du Nord won a late-staged approval battle on 6 April 2022. With uncertainty surrounding how the benefits of the project would marry Canadian emissions goals, the benefits have outweighed the risks. The project will be the first deepwater field developed in Newfoundland & Labrador. If sanctioned, we expect production to begin in 2028 with peak production in 2031. Emissions were an item of focus for the project approval and we model Bay du Nord as having a lifetime emissions intensity of 11.3 tCO2e/bbl. That is well below the global average. Equinor and partners Cenovus and BP still need to sanction the project. At a US$60/bbl Brent planning price, the Bay du Nord field has a remaining PV10 of US$1.8 billion, post-tax IRR of 18%, payback period of 8.7 years and Brent breakeven price of US$39/ bbl. Government take via a post-payback weighted royalty system is 58%. Subsea extension fields Cappahayden and Cambriol have better economics with post-tax IRRs above 30%. Equinor's two planned summer exploration wells, Sitka O-2Z and Cambriol Central, remain key to watch as they could support low cost extensions and overall development economics. Our Bay du Nord Cluster asset report already includes the staged development of five surrounding discoveries: Bay de Verde, Baccalieu, Harpoon, Cappahayden and Cambriol.

LOWER 48: n Strategic Petroleum Reserve Release

US President Joe Biden announced the historic release of 180 million barrels of oil from the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve across the next six months. This oil will flood the US and international oil markets with an abundance of oil, overshadowing Lower 48 production growth. The volume of added “supply” will reduce shipped US imports from PADD III of 300-500 kbbl/d, most of which are from Latin America and Middle East. This will likely weaken WTI Houston prices for US Gulf coast region – worth keeping an eye on over the next two quarters, this will likely cause some performance gaps between Permian pure-play operators. SPR medium sour will drive light sweet crude from the Permian and other areas into the export market so Europe won’t bear the increased natural gas draw with desulphurization in their refineries.

BAY DU NORD CLUSTER CASH FLOW AT A US$60/BBL LONG TERM FLAT REAL PRICE

RESERVOIR ISSUE 3 • MAY/JUN 2022

n Permian long-term growth constrained by inventory

We recently updated our Macro Oils strategic planning outlook, including long-term US Lower 48 oil supply. The results? Lower 48 oil grows by 0.5 mmbbl/d through 2022. Capital discipline, companies focused on getting returns to shareholders, production targets, and OFS hurdles all result in slower growth ramp-up. In $100/bbl oil, production will grow to 1.2 mmbbl/d in 2024 as supply constraints, steel costs, and labor shortages gradually loosen. Past 2024, this pace slows down. Increased Permian activity accelerates inventory depletion in prime acreages. In our model, 70% of Permian’s most active supply nodes achieve inventory exhaustion pre-2030. This will shift activity to second-tier locations and geologic targets with higher breakevens, which typically have smaller impacts on production. Maintaining high growth levels will become more challenging as core Permian inventory is consumed. n Oilfield fleets going electric?

We have recently heard several Lower 48 operators entertain converting portions of field fleets to EV and PHEV platforms to

align with Scope 1 and Scope 2 emission targets. Electric vehicle markets, especially trucks, are growing and ESG is an everincreasing focus. Switching field vehicles won’t occur right away, nor will it be cheap (F-150 Lightnings are US$50,000 for average field spec). But bottom-line cash is not the only concern anymore when emission reduction targets are paramount in investor and public perception. As shifting emissions from Scope 1 to Scope 2 seems likely, renewable energy credits (REC) usage may push operators to sign power purchase agreements (PPAs) for offsets. We think this seems more enticing compared to previous goals of creating in-house wind and solar projects. As methane emission reduction becomes the new standard, converting oilfield fleets feels like the organic next step for companies to take. When taking into consideration OFS completions hurdles on converting to e-frac fleets (emission pros and cons compared to dual-fuel fleets), switching to EVs can help operators align with Scope 1. This is also location-dependent; more developed and well-connected basins will see electric adoption faster than remote locations like Powder River basin in the NW.

SCOTT NORLIN, GIT

BRANDON MYERS

Research Analyst, Upstream Canada

Senior Analyst – Lower 48 Upstream

Scott joined the Canadian Upstream Research team at Wood Mackenzie in June 2019. He is responsible for providing financial asset valuation and objective commercial analysis on company and play activity across Canada. His coverage ranges from North American large caps to junior private producers. He also covers CNRL and Cenovus for the corporate analysis team, providing high level company valuation and strategy analysis. Prior to joining Wood Mackenzie, Scott gained comprehensive experience in exploration and development of upstream assets. Scott worked at Parex Resources on conventional assets, Devon Energy on the Jackfish oil sands project and also has field experience in unconventional plays. Scott holds a Bachelor of Geology degree with honours from the University of Calgary and is a registered Geologist in training with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta.

Brandon is a senior analyst with our Lower 48 research team. Having joined Wood Mackenzie in 2017, he has worked on the integration of subsurface data with L48 research and conducted research into every major unconventional play in the US and Canada. Prior to this, Brandon’s career included roles in both energy efficiency and the oil and gas industry. He was a founding partner of Firefli LEDs, a carbon reduction focused LED lighting company that focused on solutions for high rise towers and industrial facilities. After that he spent time as an energy analyst for Nemalux, a Canadian, heavy industry LED manufacturer that specializes in carbon and power reduction solutions for wellsite facilities. He was a conventional field geoscientist for an innovative junior oilfield optimization exploration company in Calgary through 2016 and early 2017. Brandon graduated from the University of Alberta with a BSc, Specialization in Geology. Academically his focus was on the organic geochemistry of the Duvernay shale and his thesis was focused on hydrocarbon generation and expulsion modelling across Encana’s Kaybob acreage.

DISCLAIMER – THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS STATED BELOW ARE BASED ON WOOD MACKENZIE’S DATA, SOURCED FROM PUBLIC SOURCES ACROSS THE GLOBE AND OUR PROPRIETARY TOOLS SUCH AS LENS.

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