Discriminating Character
Perhaps a review — and awareness — of the past may make us better geologists in the future.
Perhaps
a review — and awareness — of the past may make us better geologists
in the future.
"Genesis
of Oligocene Sandstone Reservoir, Seligson Field, Texas," by Robert
H. Nanz, was printed in the AAPG BULLETIN, Volume 38, January 1954.
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Perhaps
a review — and awareness — of the past may make us better geologists
in the future.
"Genesis
of Oligocene Sandstone Reservoir, Seligson Field, Texas," by Robert
H. Nanz, was printed in the AAPG BULLETIN, Volume 38, January 1954.
In 1954,
Bob Nanz published an outstanding paper that documented the environment
of deposition of a particular Oligocene sandstone, using subsurface
data.
Analysis
of the well log and core information indicated that the linear Oligocene
reservoir:
- Was
deposited on an alluvial flood plain.
- Had
a trend at right angles to the Oligocene marine depositional strike.
- Was
very similar to modern sands within the Texas Rio Grande.
Nanz demonstrated
that lenticular alluvial sands could be differentiated from dimensionally
similar long, narrow beach sands.
His paper
was one of the first to make use of such discriminators as the character
of included mud fragments, the vertical variations in grain size,
the sorting of the sand grains and the character of the associated
shales.
This study
provided powerful geologic tools for identifying sandstone depositional
environments and in making directional predictions of sandstone
reservoirs.
Nanz went
on to be vice president of Shell's Bellaire Research Laboratory,
and it is no coincidence that the laboratory produced such Sidney
Powers medalists as Rufus LeBlanc, Bob Sneider, Bert Bally and James
Lee Wilson.