Abstract
Russell Davies is the United States operations manager and consulting structural geologist for Rock Deformation Research, Dallas, Texas. He received a Ph.D. in structural geology from Texas A&M University. He has worked in the oil and gas industry for more than 10 years in exploration and production with Shell and in research on topics including fault interpretation methods, structural styles, and seal analysis with ARCO.Jim Handschy received a Ph.D. in geology and geophysics from Rice University. He has worked in the oil and gas industry for 17 years on exploration, development, research, and technology services projects for Phillips Petroleum, Shell Oil, and El Paso Natural Gas. He has experience in prospect development and evaluation, complex structural interpretation, and trap analysis from around the world. He has served as team leader and project manager for various groups, as chief geologist, and is currently manager of Global Geology for Upstream at ConocoPhillips. This volume of the AAPG Bulletin presents a review of the processes, calibration, and prediction of fault-seal mechanisms and their capacity to support hydrocarbon columns. Geological seals are commonly low-permeability rocks that retard the flow of hydrocarbons. Top seals, for example, are low-permeability strata, such as shales, that overlie hydrocarbon reservoirs and stall the upward migration of hydrocarbons. Fault seals also trap hydrocarbons but by mechanisms that reduce the permeability along a fault. Mechanisms controlling fault seals in unlithified sediments have been identified primarily as (1) shale gouge or smear in the fault zone or (2) juxtaposition of reservoir against nonreservoir lithologies. The low-permeability lithology along the fault surface is the fault rock. Early studies of fault-sealing mechanisms proposed that the smearing of clay-rich layers, such as shale, along a fault plane created a lower permeability fault rock, or seal, between two reservoirs (Smith, 1966, 1980; Weber et …
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