Instructors: John Lorenz and Scott Cooper – FractureStudies LLC
The fee includes lunch, class notes and PDH certificate.
Fractures must be understood before they are counted and before they can be meaningfully analyzed. This class combines lectures and hands-on core exercises to demonstrate the methods and advantages of full fracture characterizations in core. The class uses cored intervals from the Niobrara and Tensleep formations plus a fifty-piece teaching collection from a variety of other formations to illustrate the range of natural and induced fracture types and their probable effects on reservoir permeability. Methods for distinguishing between natural and induced fractures will be discussed. The exercises include recognition and interpretation of the different types of fracture surface ornamentation (“fractography”) and other important, measurable fracture characteristics. Students will learn how to measure absolute fracture strikes from oriented cores as well as how to assess the relative fracture strikes in un-oriented cores. Lectures include comparisons of fracture characterizations from image logs with fracture data from equivalent cored intervals, highlighting the advantages of calibrating image logs with core.