April 13, 2022
Geological Modelling

Quantitative modelling of sediment gravity flows in the ocean can help geologists and engineers in the characterisation of the physical properties of the resulting deposits for the exploitation of reservoirs containing oil, gas or water resources. The modelling services offered by WWS allow the spatial distribution of sediment grains in deposits to be quantified, providing a physical basis for predicting the thickness distribution of the deposit, its porosity and permeability. These physical properties are fundamental to characterize the volume of in-situ resources and estimate the recovery potential.
In addition, depleted reservoirs are currently considered as sites for CO2 storage as part of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) initiatives. A detailed understanding of reservoir geometry and connectivity, at an even higher level than that required during the exploration and production phases are key to the successful use of such depleted reservoirs for CO2 sequestration.
Flow simulation and Synthetic deposits
Turbidity currents are relatively rare events and difficult to monitor directly in the field. High-resolution 3D numerical simulations represent a fundamental tool to understand how turbidity currents behave under specific geologic situations and the resulting patterns of erosion and deposition. The synthetic deposits can assist geologists to model subsurface reservoirs using physically-based rules, with applications from exploration (basin-scale 10’s of km) to development and production (bed-scale 100’s of m).
Example 3D numerical simulations of turbidity current along a sinuous submarine channel (upper panel) and of a channel entering an unconfined slope basin (lower panel). The flow (left) and deposits (right) are compared to seafloor seismic amplitude images where warm/cool colors correspond to sand/mud content near the seabed. Each panel displays an animation of the flow (left) and corresponding deposit geometry for each grain size class used in the simulation (right). Images modified from S. Abd-el-Gawad et al. (2012a,b).


We offer Services in the following areas:
Flow modelling and visualization in 2D and 3D
Simulation of deposit geometries, grain size distributions and porosity/permeability estimation
Simulation of topography evolution, stratigraphy and lateral pinch-out geometries due to deposition against topography or erosion