Structural Geology
Course overview
Structural geology is the study of processes and products of rock deformation. The course will first cover the concepts of deformation, kinematics, force and stress. Then, faults geometry and growth will be analyzed with special emphasis to the brittle regime. The course will cover the techniques of structural geology through a survey of the features and geometries of faults and folds and the techniques of strain analysis. The course will also cover the mechanics of rock deformation, the frictional reactivation theory and the effect of pore fluid pressure in both fracturing and reactivation. In the last part, regional structural geology and tectonic regimes will be introduced.
The course will also deal with the concepts of balanced geological cross-sections construction and with the geometrical reconstruction of fault surfaces at depth. Class lectures will be supplemented by exercises and demonstrations. These will be focused on the usage of the stereographic projection to analyze folds, to perform beds rotations and to reconstruct the kinematics and paleo-stress of faults populations. The concepts of geological map reading and interpretation will be introduced. Throughout the course, all concepts are illustrated with both field and subsurface examples.
The course is designed for
Geologists, geophysicists and reservoir engineers who want to learn the methodology to use structural geology concepts and techniques to unravel geological problems.
Learning objectives
- To help geologists, geophysicists and reservoir engineers to gain a thorough understanding of the concepts and practical applications of structural geology for petroleum exploration;
- To prepare participants to recognize rocks structures from outcrops and from subsurface data-sets and interpret them into a geologically coherent picture;
- To train participants to be able to integrate different data-set at different scales;
- To prepare participants to analyze structural data-sets in order to extract information about tectonic history and kinematics;
- To train participants to extract data and information from geological maps.
Course outline
Foliation, cleavage and lineations
Extensional, contractional and strike-slip tectonic regimes, salt tectonics
Cross-section balancing and restoration
The stereonet to solve geological problems
The reading and interpretation of geological maps
Structural geology and structural analysis
Deformation, stress and strain
Stress at lithospheric scale
Rheology
Fractures brittle deformation and faults
Kinematics and paleostress in the brittle regime
Folding
