University of Liverpool scientists are working to understand the nature of oil and gas reservoirs within deeply buried submarine channels.
A global consortium of 11 major oil companies has awarded Stephen Flint and David Hodgson of school's the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences $1.7 million to study how sand is transported through and deposited in deep-sea submarine channels.
Scientists will study ancient channel systems in the Karoo area of South Africa, which are now exposed above sea level.
Submarine channels transport sediments such as sand, mud and silt from shallow marine waters to the deep sea, and contain much of the recently discovered oil and gas reserves outside the Middle East.
The cost of drilling a well to extract new reserves in slope channel reservoirs can exceed $50 million, so it is crucial that exactly the right position is targeted, researchers said.
Only sand-filled channels can produce oil, so scientists at the university will work on predicting which channels contain sand and which are filled with mud and silt, based on analysis of the characteristics and settings of the Karoo systems.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
Related stories:
Finding a better way to make biodiesel
They're only 250 billionths of a meter in diameter. But fill them with the right chemistry and Iowa State scientists say the tiny nanospheres they've developed could revolutionize how biodiesel is produced.
Caribbean resorts need to be carbon-neutral
The growth in the number of tourists jetting off from UK airports to Caribbean holiday resorts is likely to be effected by policies to tackle climate change, according to an Oxford University researcher. The study by Dr Murray Simpson, a Senior Research Associate at the School of Geography, was presented at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual Conference in London on Wednesday 27 August.
Turning Waste Material into Ethanol
(PhysOrg.com) -- Say the word “biofuels” and most people think of grain ethanol and biodiesel. But there’s another, older technology called gasification that’s getting a new look from researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and Iowa State University. By combining gasification with high-tech nanoscale porous catalysts, they hope to create ethanol from a wide range of biomass, including distiller’s grain left over from ethanol production, corn stover from the field, grass, wood pulp, animal waste, and garbage.
Undersea volcanic rocks offer vast repository for greenhouse gas, says study
A group of scientists has used deep ocean-floor drilling and experiments to show that volcanic rocks off the West Coast and elsewhere might be used to securely imprison huge amounts of globe-warming carbon dioxide captured from power plants or other sources. In particular, they say that natural chemical reactions under 78,000 square kilometers (30,000 square miles) of ocean floor off California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia could lock in as much as 150 years of U.S. CO2 production. The findings are published today in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
NOAA takes first broad look at soot from ships
Tugboats puff out more soot for the amount of fuel used than other commercial vessels, and large cargo ships emit more than twice as much soot as previously estimated, according to the first extensive study of commercial vessel soot emissions. Scientists from NOAA and the University of Colorado conducted the study and present their findings in the July 11 issue of the journal
Geophysical Research Letters.
UN's climate change guru sees record oil price as a positive
The UN's top climate change official said Thursday that record oil prices, which have surged to 146 dollars a barrel, were positive for the environment.
Halting methane squanderlust
The pipes that rise from oil fields, topped with burning flames of natural gas, waste fossil fuels and dump carbon dioxide into the air. In new work, researchers have identified the structure of a catalytic material that can turn methane into a safe and easy-to-transport liquid. The insight lays the foundation for converting excess methane into a variety of useful fuels and chemicals.
Toy-Like Microboat Could Carry Tiny Cargoes
As a child, Cheng Luo, an engineer from the University of Texas at Arlington, recalls playing with wooden toy boats that were propelled forward when a drop of oil was placed on the back of the boats. When the oil slid off into the water, it created lower surface tension behind the boat than in front, which pushed the boat forward. This surface-tension-based propulsion is called the Marangoni effect.