Outcrops Revitalized: Tools, Techniques and Applications
Outcrops are fundamental to everything we hope to achieve in geological understanding. They are gateways to geological processes, earth history and they help ground-truth remote sensing applications. With increasing resolution of subsurface tools and techniques, one could be forgiven in believing that outcrops have had their day and their utility is less than in the past great eras of field mapping and the development of facies models. This premise is far from the truth and this new SEPM volume illustrates how new analytical techniques are revitalizing outcrops and in the process creating a wealth of new data and fresh geological understandings. In this book you will find a compilation of the growing arsenal of outcrop tools and techniques and a consideration of future developments. This collection of papers, delivered at a SEPM Research Conference on the West coast of Ireland in the summer of 2008, is a smorgasbord of case studies, workflows, modeling, and applications which spans clastic and carbonate settings. Whatever your interest in outcrop geology and its application there is something in this volume for you. If you are seeking guidance for using new outcrop tools, looking for efficiencies in data collection or desiring new insights for old and favorite outcrops, this volume is a must have. This volume also makes an excellent reference or textbook for any group of professionals or students working or studying the new technologies that have allowed new insights from outcrops. We also consider this a superbly timed publication because many new outcrop tools are now becoming mainstream via reduced purchase and operating costs. Once you read this volume, and there are reduced prices for SEPM members and students, please share your new experiences with the authors and editors and help continue the revitalization of our shared and continually surprising outcrop library of the earth.
Application of Terrestrial Lidar to Upper Silurian, Shallow-Marine Outcrops, Southern Libya—Implications for Subsurface Exploration
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Published:January 01, 2011
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CiteCitation
Dirk Radies, Michael Scherer, Robert Koehazy, 2011. "Application of Terrestrial Lidar to Upper Silurian, Shallow-Marine Outcrops, Southern Libya—Implications for Subsurface Exploration", Outcrops Revitalized: Tools, Techniques and Applications, Ole J. Martinsen, Andrew J. Pulham, Peter D.W. Haughton, Morgan D. Sullivan
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Abstract
Terrestrial LIDAR data were acquired at four sites in the Acacus Formation in southwestern Libya in order to better understand the sedimentary architecture and to create outcrop models to aid ongoing subsurface exploration. The outcrop models comprise up to 8 individual scans merged to produce panels up to 1.2 km wide and c. 200 m high. The panels highlight the gross stratigraphic architecture including shallowing- and coarsening-upwards cycles, major channel bodies, and subtle prograding units. The scan resolution was chosen to resolve the bed-scale stacking that typifies hydrocarbon reservoirs in this formation. Surfaces and facies observed in the outcrops and constrained by the LIDAR data were then used to construct 2-D synthetic seismic panels of the outcrop. These models were parameterized with densities and velocities from subsurface examples and used to gain insight into the seismic resolution of depositional architecture.