Abstract Reservoir production is highly dependent on reservoir models. A key problem faced in the development of a hydrocarbon reservoir is that of constructing a reservoir model that can generate reliable production forecasts under various development scenarios. Therefore, geological models have to be built in three dimensions (3D). Unfortunately, manual construction of 3D geological models (deterministically) is almost impossible, which explains why geologists often limit their interpretation to two dimensional (2D) correlation panels, fence-diagrams or maps. Consequently, geological conceptual models are rarely included or considerably simplified in reservoir models used for flow simulations and replaced by stochastic or geostatistic approaches. In spite of this admission of failure, sedimentological cross-sections and maps contain most of the knowledge and concepts of sedimentologists. They represent the outcome of sedimentological studies, including available well data, seismic interpretation and especially sedimentological and environmental concepts, incorporating all facies transitions and successions in a high-resolution stratigraphic framework. They allow fine temporal- and spatial-scale sedimentological heterogeneities to be identified. The integration of these fine-scale sedimentological heterogeneities is an essential step in improving the precision and accuracy of static reservoir models and volumetric calculations. This paper demonstrates the quantitative influence of introducing sedimentological information into the reservoir characterization workflow using a simple deterministic workflow. The described incorporation of sedimentological knowledge through facies 3D proportions cubes allows a direct assessment to facies distribution multi-realization scheme and associated uncertainties by applying stochastic simulations.

Abstract Carbonate platforms are open systems with natural boundaries in space and time. Across their spatial boundaries there are fluxes of energy (e.g. light, chemical energy in compounds, and kinetic energy in currents and mass flows) and matter (e.g. nutrients, dissolved gases such as CO 2 , and sediment - especially, of course, carbonates). Internally, these fluxes are regulated by myriads of interactions and feedbacks (Masse 1995 ), and the residue is consigned to the geological record. The most distinctive aspect of carbonate platforms is the predominant role of organisms in producing, processing and/or trapping carbonate sediment, even in Precambrian examples. Because of evolutionary changes in this strong biotic input, it is harder to generalize about carbonate platforms than about most other sedimentary systems. Evolution has altered both the constructive and destructive effects of platform-dwelling organisms on carbonate fabrics, with profound consequences for facies development. Moreover, changing patterns in the provision of accommodation space (e.g. between greenhouse and icehouse climatic regimes) have also left their stamp on facies geometries, in turn feeding back to the evolution of the platform biotas. Hence simplistic analogies between modern and ancient platforms may give rise to misleading interpretations of what the latter were like and how they formed. Although a number of carbonate platform and reef specialists have warned of the dangers of such misplaced uniformitarianism (e.g. Braithwaite 1973 ; Gili et al. 1995 ; Wood 1999 ), it remains depressingly commonplace in the literature on ancient carbonate platforms. The endless quest in