AAPG PSGD Webinar/Q&A: Rodrigo Correa presents Quantifying Spatial Arrangement of Fractures

Webinar is the first 55 min followed Q&A Quantifying Spatial Arrangement of Fractures with Normalized Correlation Count Abstract: Spatial arrangement is an important characteristic of fracture arrays. The quantification of spatial arrangement is essential to permit an accurate description of fracture distribution. Fracture arrays can be arranged in many forms, and due to that, distinguishing clustered and periodic arrangements – opposite types of arrangements - from random arrangements is an essential step to characterize their organization. The Normalized correlation count (NCC) method is a novel technique that can be used to quantify spatial arrangement of fractures. It relies on measuring distances between fractures, including non-nearest neighbors. The NCC method provides information of spatial arrangement across a broad range of length scales, facilitating the comprehension of fracture organization in the array at different scales of observation. In this method, data is always normalized by expected random arrangement values, with the advantage of providing a confidence envelope and easy graphical visualization of results. We show results of the use of NCC to characterize spatial arrangement in synthetic and real data from outcrops and subsurface, using scanlines and image logs for the 1D analysis and aerial images for the 2D analysis. Valuable information such as fracture arrangement type, fracture cluster size and cluster spacing are provided in the resulting analysis. The ability to rigorously quantify different types of fracture arrangements is a useful first step towards investigating how and why clustered patterns arise. Bio: Rodrigo Correa is a PhD student from The University of Texas at Austin, associated with the FRAC group. He graduated as a geology BSc. at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro in 2009 and geomechanics MSc. at Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro in 2016. He has been working for Petrobras, the Brazilian national oil company since 2010. In 2014, he joined Petrobras reservoir development team for Santos Basin Pre-salt fields and was responsible for the reservoir geology of diverse assets in carbonate reservoirs. He joined The University of Texas at Austin in 2019 as a full-time PhD student sponsored by Petrobras. His research is focused on fractured carbonates, diagenesis and spatial arrangement of fractures. Marrett, R., Gale, J.F., Gómez, L.A. and Laubach, S.E., 2018. Correlation analysis of fracture arrangement in space. Journal of Structural Geology, 108, pp.16-33. Correlation Count software (Mac and PC) on GitHub