Geological Engineering Commons^™

Coreflooding Evaluation Of Fiber-Assisted Recrosslinkable Preformed Particle Gel Using An Open Fracture Model, Shuda Zhao, Ali Al Brahim, Junchen Liu, Baojun Bai, Thomas P. Schuman

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Recrosslinkable Preformed Particle Gels (RPPGs) Have Been Used to Treat the Problem of Void Space Conduits (VSC) and repair the "Short-Circuited" Waterflood in Alaska's West Sak Field. Field Results Showed a 23% Increase in Success Rates over Typical Preformed Particle Gel (PPG) Treatments. in This Paper, We Evaluated Whether Adding Fiber into RPPGs Can Increase the RPPG Plugging Efficiency and Thus Further Improve the Success Rate. We Designed Open Fracture Models to Represent vs.C and Investigated the Effect of Swelling Ratio (SR), Fracture Size, and Fiber Concentration on Gel Injection Pressure, Water Breakthrough Pressure, and Permeability Reduction. Results Show that …

A Systematic Design Approach For Bulk Gel Treatments Based On Gel Volume-Concentration Ratio In Field Projects, Munqith Aldhaheri, Mingzhen Wei, Baojun Bai

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Controlling excessive water production in mature oil fields has always been a desired objective of the oil and gas industry. This objective calls for planning of more effective water-control gel treatments with optimized designs to obtain more attractive outcomes. Unfortunately, planning such effective treatments remains a dilemma for reservoir engineers due to the lack of methodical design tools in the industry. This paper presents a novel systematic design approach for polyacrylamide-based bulk gel treatments by classifying their field projects according to the gel volume-concentration ratio (VCR) into three design types. In terms of one another, the approach estimates either the …

Seismic Azimuthal Anisotropy Beneath A Fast Moving Ancient Continent: Constraints From Shear Wave Splitting Analysis In Australia, Kailun Ba, Stephen S. Gao, Jianguo Song, Kelly H. Liu

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Seismic Azimuthal Anisotropy Beneath Australia is Investigated using Splitting of the Teleseismic PKS, SKKS, and SKS Phases to Delineate Asthenospheric Flow and Lithospheric Deformation Beneath One of the Oldest and Fast-Moving Continents on Earth. in Total 511 Pairs of High-Quality Splitting Parameters Were Observed at 116 Seismic Stations. Unlike Other Stable Continental Areas in Africa, East Asia, and North America, Where Spatially Consistent Splitting Parameters Dominate, the Fast Orientations and Splitting Times Observed in Australia Show a Complex Pattern, with a Slightly Smaller Than Normal Average Splitting Time of 0.85 ± 0.33 S. on the North Australian Craton, the Fast …

Landslide Susceptibility Assessment Of A Part Of The Western Ghats (India) Employing The Ahp And F-Ahp Models And Comparison With Existing Susceptibility Maps, Sheela Bhuvanendran Bhagya, Anita Saji Sumi, Sankaran Balaji, Jean Homian Danumah, Romulus Costache, Ambujendran Rajaneesh, Ajayakumar Gokul, Chandini Padmanabhapanicker Chandrasenan, Renata Pacheco Quevedo, Alfred Johny, Kochappi Sathyan Sajinkumar, Sunil Saha, Rajendran Shobha Ajin, Pratheesh Chacko Mammen, Kamal Abdelrahman, Mohammed S. Fnais, Mohamed Abioui

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Landslides are prevalent in the Western Ghats, and the incidences that happened in 2021 in the Koottickal area of the Kottayam district (Western Ghats) resulted in the loss of 10 lives. The objectives of this study are to assess the landslide susceptibility of the high-range local self-governments (LSGs) in the Kottayam district using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy-AHP (F-AHP) models and to compare the performance of existing landslide susceptible maps. This area never witnessed any massive landslides of this dimension, which warrants the necessity of relooking into the existing landslide-susceptible models. For AHP and F-AHP modeling, ten conditioning …

Wildfire Risk Zone Mapping In Contrasting Climatic Conditions: An Approach Employing Ahp And F-Ahp Models, Aishwarya Sinha, Suresh Nikhil, Rajendran Shobha Ajin, Jean Homian Danumah, Sunil Saha, Romulus Costache, Ambujendran Rajaneesh, Kochappi Sathyan Sajinkumar, Kolangad Amrutha, Alfred Johny, Fahad Marzook, Pratheesh Chacko Mammen, Kamal Abdelrahman, Mohammed S. Fnais, Mohamed Abioui

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Wildfires are one of the gravest and most momentous hazards affecting rich forest biomes worldwide; India is one of the hotspots due to its diverse forest types and human-induced reasons. This research aims to identify wildfire risk zones in two contrasting climate zones, the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary in the Western Ghats and the Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary in the Himalayas, using geospatial tools, analytical hierarchy process (AHP), and fuzzy-AHP models to assess the impacts of various conditioning factors and compare the efficacy of the two models. Both of the wildlife sanctuaries were severely battered by fires in the past, with more …

Lysine Crosslinked Polyacrylamide─A Novel Green Polymer Gel For Preferential Flow Control, Tao Song, Baojun Bai, Yugandhara Eriyagama, Thomas P. Schuman

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Acrylamide-based polymer gels have been applied to control the preferential flow in the subsurface for decades. However, some commonly used crosslinkers, such as Cr (III) and phenol-formaldehyde, are highly toxic and are being phased out because of stringent environmental regulations. This work uses l-lysine as the green crosslinker to produce acrylamide-based polymer gels. This article systematically studied the effect of lysine and polymer concentration, salinity, pH, and temperature on gelation behavior and thermal stability. Besides, the gelation mechanism and crosslinking density were elucidated in this work. A high-permeability sandstone core was used to test the plugging efficiency of this novel …

Version 2 Of The Global Catalogue Of Large Anthropogenic And Volcanic So2 Sources And Emissions Derived From Satellite Measurements, Vitali E. Fioletov, Chris A. Mclinden, Debora Griffin, Ihab Abboud, Nickolay Krotkov, Peter J.T. Leonard, Can Li, Joanna Joiner, Nicolas Theys, Simon Carn

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Sulfur dioxide (SO2) measurements from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS), and TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) satellite spectrometers were used to update and extend the previously developed global catalogue of large SO2 emission sources. This version 2 of the global catalogue covers the period of 2005-2021 and includes a total of 759 continuously emitting point sources releasing from about 10 ktyr-1 to more than 4000 ktyr-1 of SO2, that have been identified and grouped by country and primary source origin: volcanoes (106 sources); power plants (477); smelters (74); and sources related to the oil and …

Underestimated Passive Volcanic Sulfur Degassing Implies Overestimated Anthropogenic Aerosol Forcing, U. A. Jongebloed, A. J. Schauer, J. Cole-Dai, C. G. Larrick, R. Wood, T. P. Fischer, S. A. Carn, S. Salimi, S. R. Edouard, S. Zhai, L. Geng, B. Alexander

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

The Arctic is warming at almost four times the global rate. An estimated sixty percent of greenhouse-gas-induced Arctic warming has been offset by anthropogenic aerosols, but the contribution of aerosols to radiative forcing (RF) represents the largest uncertainty in estimating total RF, largely due to unknown preindustrial aerosol abundance. Here, sulfur isotope measurements in a Greenland ice core show that passive volcanic degassing contributes up to 66 ± 10% of preindustrial ice core sulfate in years without major eruptions. A state-of-the-art model indicates passive volcanic sulfur emissions influencing the Arctic are underestimated by up to a factor of three, possibly …

Prediction Of Dynamic Subsidence In The Proximity Of Longwall Panel Boundaries, Jesus David Romero Benitez

Theses and Dissertations--Mining Engineering

The development of mining subsidence has a dynamic character, and it is related to the mining rate and a time coefficient. Reliable prediction of dynamic deformations is important when planning to undermine important structures that cannot account for large relative deformations and or large horizontal strains. This thesis discusses subsidence development for a number of points over a retreating longwall panel in the eastern US. The prediction points are at different distances from the excavation rib and, therefore, present a different response in terms of dynamic movements. Final movements, i.e., measurements after the panel was fully extracted, were used to …

Remote Sensing Approach For Terramechanics Applications Utilizing Machine And Deep Learning, Jordan J. Ewing

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Terrain traversability is critical for developing Go/No Go maps, significantly impacting a mission's success. To predict the mobility of a vehicle over a terrain, one must understand the soil characteristics. In situ measurements performed by soldiers in the field are the current method of collecting this information, which is time-consuming, are only point measurements, and can put soldiers in harm's way. Therefore, this study investigates using remote sensing as an alternative approach to characterize terrain properties.

This approach will explore the relationships between electromagnetic radiation and soil types with varying properties. Optical, thermal, and hyperspectral sensors will be used to …

Developing A Regional Scale Landslide Early Warning System In A Data-Sparse Region Using Remote Sensing, Geostatistics, And Google Earth Engine, Vishnu Chakrapani Lekha

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Landslide Early Warning System (LEWS) is a non-structural approach to mitigate landslide risk by alerting vulnerable communities at an early stage. This study aimed to develop a regional LEWS for rain-induced shallow landslides in Idukki, a mountainous district in India with sparse rainfall data. The landslide model consists of a rainfall component and a slope stability component. Satellite precipitation data can be used in data-sparse regions, but they must be calibrated because they tend to underestimate rainfall. To improve the accuracy of satellite data, this study used a geostatistics-based multi-criteria approach to identify optimal locations to install new rain …

Evaluating Geomechanical Uncertainty In Open Pit Mine Planning, Evan Ricchio-Hitchcock

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Open pit mine planning encompasses a variety of uncertainties. Uncertainty due to geomechanics is most critical for a safe operation in an open pit mine. Without sufficient knowledge of the geomechanical properties of the subsurface, a reliability analysis of the slope stability could be challenging. Slope stability is a crucial step in pit optimization since the cash flow analysis of a mine is constrained by a stable slope angle. However, obtaining a stable slope angle with certainty is difficult to achieve as geomechanical parameters are modeled using a very limited number of samples. This thesis proposes a method to integrate …

Verification Of Oil Recovery Mechanism Through Alteration Of Relative Permeability Curve And Analytical Measurements, Tina Tharn

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

In the petroleum production industry, there are several methods that can be utilized to increase oil recovery. These methods are so-called Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). Nowadays, Low Salinity Water Flooding (LSWF) is one of the considerable of those techniques due to its cost and simplicity. However, understanding its main oil recovery mechanism is still limited. Therefore, the investigation of oil mechanism provided by LSWF would help refine its application to oilfields. In this study, the Johnson–Bossler–Naumann (JBN) approach is employed to examine relative permeability curves during LSWF in different rock formations including clean sandstone (SS), shaly-sandstone (SHS), and dolostone (DL). …

Measurement Of Volumetric Deformation, Strain Localization, And Shear Band Characterization During Triaxial Testing Using A Photogrammetry-Based Method, Sara Fayek, Xiong Zhang, Xiaolong Xia, Qingqing Fu, Jeffrey D. Cawlfield

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Triaxial Testing Has Been Routinely Used as a Standard Laboratory Test that Allows Correct Determination of Soil Characteristics. Previously the Volumetric Strain of the Triaxial Specimen Was Considered to Be Uniformly Distributed Along with the Specimen during the Isotropic and Deviatoric Loading. Although This Assumption Might Hold True under Isotropic Loading, the Effects of Restrained Ends and Disturbance during the Procedures of Specimen Installation and Testing Can Cause Nonuniform Strains throughout the Whole Specimen. This Paper Investigates the Effects of Specimen Preparation and Misalignment on the Strain Uniformity Along with the Soil Specimen during Triaxial Testing. a Series of Consolidated …

Identification, Mapping, Analysis, And Dating Of Composite Mega Landslides In The Colorado Plateau, Conor Maris Watkins

Doctoral Dissertations

"This research consists of three articles focusing on landslide complexes within the Grand Canyon region of the Colorado Plateau. This is a vast and remote region of rugged topography. The landslide complexes in this study are greater than 10 million cubic meters in volume. The slides are located within different areas of the region and consist of differing geology but share multiple commonalities. Stratigraphic and structural controls tend to dictate where the slides occur. All of the landslides occur where carbonates and/or sandstones overlie over consolidated shales. The shales are susceptible to creep and strain softening where lateral confinement has …

Tropospheric Correction For Insar Using Machine Learning, Ngo Hi Kenny Yue

Masters Theses

"Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) is a popular technique for studying Earth's surface deformation caused by phenomena like earthquakes and subsidence. However, its accuracy is limited by tropospheric delays caused by water vapor in the atmosphere. This limitation can be overcome by using methods that correct for tropospheric noise, such as statistical, empirical, and predictive approaches. This study explores the potential of using machine learning algorithms to predict the zenith total delay caused by tropospheric effects in InSAR measurements. The study employs two different machine learning algorithms, random forest and neural networks, to learn the relationship between numerical weather prediction …

Finite Line Relief Well System Design For Dams And Levees, Andrew M. Keffer, Erich D. Guy, Katherine R. Grote

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

An Analytical Method is Commonly Used to Design Relief Well Systems by Assuming the Well Line Extends an Infinite Distance Parallel to the Dam or Levee. This Assumption May Be Met in Some Cases, But When a Well Line is of Finite Length, This Can Severely Underestimate Excess Heads. Although These Consequences Have Been Historically Recognized, a Practical Graph-Based Analytical Approach for Finite Well Line Design Has Not Been Developed. Finite Well Lines Exist and Continue to Be Installed at Many Locations, So This Study Developed a Practical Design Method for Such Systems. Analytical Solutions and Numerical Models Were Used …

Electrical Resistivity Tomography Revealing Possible Breaching Mechanism Of A Late Pleistocene Long-Lasted Gigantic Rockslide Dam In Diexi, China, Lanxin Dai, Xuanmei Fan, Dan Wang, Fanyu Zhang, Ali P. Yunus, Srikrishnan Siva Subramanian, J. David Rogers, Hans Balder Havenith

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Landslide damming is a widespread phenomenon worldwide and significantly affects the evolution of fluvial landscapes. However, it is rarely witnessed from an antiquities perspective, and the case for observing their internal structure is challenging. We attempt to visualize the subsurface structure and understand the likely breaching mechanism of the late Pleistocene Diexi gigantic landslide dam (longevity of ~ 10 ka), using electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) method. Eight ERT measurements on the Diexi dam body revealed high resistivity zones near the periphery and lower resistivity zones in the middle portion of the profiles. Geomorphological mapping based on the LiDAR data determined …

Drainage And Sedimentary Response Of The Northern Andes And The Pebas System To Miocene Strike-Slip Tectonics: A Source To Sink Study Of The Magdalena Basin, S. Zapata, L. Calderon-Diaz, C. Jaramillo, Francisca Oboh-Ikuenobe, J. C. Piedrahita, M. Rodríguez-Cuevas, A. Cardona, E. R. Sobel, M. Parra, V. Valencia, A. Patiño, J. S. Jaramillo-Rios, M. Flores, J. Glodny

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Miocene strike-slip tectonics was responsible for creating and closing short-lived (ca. 6 Ma) passages and the emergence of isolated topography in the Northern Andes. These geological events likely influenced the migration and/or isolation of biological populations. To better understand the paleogeography of the Miocene hinterland and foreland regions in the Northern Andes, we conducted a source-to-sink approach in the Magdalena Basin. This basin is located between the Central and Eastern Cordilleras of Colombia and contains an ample Miocene record, which includes Lower Miocene fine-grained strata and Middle Miocene to Pliocene coarsening-up strata. Our study presents a new data set that …

Sedimentological And Geochemical Characterization Of A Varved Sediment Record From The Northern Neotropics, Edward Duarte, Jonathan Obrist-Farner, Susan R.H. Zimmerman, Erik T. Brown, Robert Brown

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Annually resolved sedimentological records (including annual varves) can be used to develop precise chronologies for key climatic and tectonic events. Varved records, however, are most common in high latitude lakes, resulting in a spatial bias with respect to annually resolved records in tropical regions. Here we report on the sedimentology of two sediment cores from Lake Izabal, eastern Guatemala, that contain a well-preserved thinly laminated section spanning ca. 2200 years of the mid-Holocene. We integrate radiocarbon age-depth modeling, sedimentological observations, laminae counting, µX-ray fluorescence scanning, and multivariate statistical analyses to constrain the nature and chronology of the laminations. Our sedimentological …

Impact Of Composition And Salinity On Swelling And Gel Strength Of Poly (Acrylamide-Co-Acrylic Acid) Preformed Particle Gel, Ahmed Ben Ali, Reem Elaf, Mohammed Saad, Ibnelwaleed A. Hussein, Baojun Bai

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The effects of various material compositions and reservoir environments on the ultimate strength and swelling kinetics of a commercial preformed particle gel (PPG) have been investigated. This study used different ratios of acrylamide and acrylic acid copolymers with a specific crosslinker concentration. Results have indicated that increasing the acrylic acid proportion enhances the PPGs' ability to swell but weakens their network structure. In contrast, increasing the crosslinker content decreases the swelling ratio and increases the gel strength. The highest equilibrium swelling capacity among the six preformed particle gel samples was obtained for PPG2, which has the highest acrylic acid amount …

Descriptive Systematics Of Upper Palaeocene–Lower Eocene Pollen And Spores From The Northern Niger Delta, South-Eastern Nigeria, Luke Mander, Carlos Jaramillo, Francisca Oboh-Ikuenobe

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Fossil pollen and spores are a vital source of information on the geological history of tropical vegetation including reconstructions of vegetation diversity and composition. However, such work relies on a sound taxonomic framework, and this is challenging to achieve because of the large number of pollen and spore morphotypes that are encountered in palynological preparations from tropical sediments. In tropical West Africa, for example, extensive taxonomic work on Cretaceous–Paleogene pollen and spores was undertaken in the later part of the twentieth century, but more recent palynological work has focused on stratigraphy and basin evolution, and there is a need for …

The Success Story Of First Ever Polymer Flood Field Pilot To Enhance The Recovery Of Heavy Oils On Alaska's North Slope, Abhijit Dandekar, Baojun Bai, John Barnes, Dave Cercone, Reid Edwards, Samson Ning, Randy Seright, Brent Sheets, Dongmei Wang, Yin Zhang

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The primary goal of the first ever polymer flood field pilot at Milne Point is to validate the use of polymers for heavy oil Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) on Alaska North Slope (ANS). The specific objectives are systematic evaluation of advanced technology that integrates polymer flooding, low salinity water flooding, horizontal wells, and numerical simulation based on polymer flood performance data. Accordingly, under the co-sponsorship of the US Department of Energy and Hilcorp Alaska LLC the first ever polymer field pilot commenced on August 28, 2018 in the Schrader Bluff heavy oil reservoir at the Milne Point Unit (MPU) on …

Prediction Of Single Proppant Terminal Settling Velocity In High Viscosity Friction Reducers By Using Artificial Neural Networks And Xgboost, Xiaojing Ge, Rong Lu, Ghith Biheri, Abdulmohsin Imqam, Baojun Bai

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

High viscosity friction reducers (HVFRs) have been recently gaining more attention and increasing in use, not only as friction-reducing agents but also as proppant carriers. The settling velocity of the proppant is one of the key outputs to describe their proppant transport capability. However, it is influenced by many factors such as fluid properties, proppant properties, and fracture properties. Many empirical/physics-based models and correlations to predict particle settling velocity have been developed. However, they are usually based on certain assumptions and have applicable limits. In contrast, machine learning models can be considered as a black box. The objective of this …

Experimental Study: Investigating The Anions And Cations' Effects On The Elasticity Of The Anionic And Cationic High Viscosity Friction Reducers, Xiaojing Ge, Ghith Biheri, Abdulmohsin Imqam, Baojun Bai, Yuwei Zhang

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

High viscosity friction reducers (HVFRs) are widely used as friction-reducing agents and proppant carriers during hydraulic fracturing. The reuse of produced water has gained popularity due to environmental and economic benefits. Currently, the field's most commonly used friction reducers are anionic and cationic HVFRs. Anionic HVFRs are typically pumped with freshwater, while cationic HVFRs are used with high Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) produced water. Cationic friction reducers are believed to have better TDS tolerance, friction reduction performance, and proppant transport capabilities compared to anionic friction reducers under high TDS conditions due to their superior viscoelastic properties. In addition, the impact …

Risk As A Process: A History Informed Hazard Planning Approach Applied To The 2018 Post-Fire Debris Flows, Montecito, California, Anna Serra-Llobet, John Radke, G. Mathias Kondolf, Larry Gurrola, J. David Rogers, Sarah Lindbergh, Johnny Douvinet

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Historical information about floods is not commonly used in the US to inform land use planning decisions. Rather, the current approach to managing floods is based on static maps derived from computer simulations of the area inundated by floods of specified return intervals. These maps provide some information about flood hazard, but they do not reflect the underlying processes involved in creating a flood disaster, which typically include increased exposure due to building on flood-prone land, nor do they account for the greater hazard resulting from wildfire. We developed and applied an approach to analyze how exposure has evolved in …

Magnetic Inversion Approach For Modeling Data Acquired Across Faults: Various Environmental Cases Studies, Khalid S. Essa, Eid R. Abo-Ezz, Neil Lennart Anderson, Omar A. Gomaa, Mahmoud Elhussein

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

An effective extension to the particle swarm optimizer scheme has been developed to visualize and modelize robustly magnetic data acquired across vertical or dipping faults. This method can be applied to magnetic data sets that support various investigations, including mining, fault hazards assessment, and hydrocarbon exploration. The inversion algorithm is established depending on the second horizontal derivative technique and the particle swarm optimizer algorithm and was utilized for multi-source models. Herein, the inversion method is applied to three synthetic models (a dipping fault model contaminated without and with different Gaussian noises levels, a dipping fault model affected by regional anomaly, …

Transport And Plugging Performance Evaluation Of A Novel Re-Crosslinkable Microgel Used For Conformance Control In Mature Oilfields With Super-Permeable Channels, Adel Alotibi, T. Song, Baojun Bai, Thomas P. Schuman

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Preformed particle gels (PPG) have been widely applied in oilfields to control excessive water production. However, PPG has limited success in treating opening features because the particles can be flushed readily during post-water flooding. We have developed a novel micro-sized Re-crosslinkable PPG (micro-RPPG) to solve the problem. The microgel can re-crosslink to form a bulk gel, avoiding being washed out easily. This paper evaluates the novel microgels' transport and plugging performance through super-permeable channels. Micro-RPPG was synthesized and evaluated for this study. Its storage moduli after fully swelling are approximately 82 Pa. The microgel characterization, self-healing process, transportation behavior, and …

The Influence Of Tropical Atlantic Sea-Surface Temperatures And The North Atlantic Subtropical High During The Maya Droughts, Derek K. Gibson, Jonathan Obrist-Farner, Brooke A. Birkett, Jason H. Curtis, Melissa A. Berke, Peter M.J. Douglas, Prudence M. Rice, Jeremy Maurer

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The frequency and duration of Late-Holocene hydrologic extremes in northern Guatemala were investigated using multiple sedimentological and geochemical proxies preserved in a sediment core collected from Lake Petén Itzá. A general trend of increasing aridity in the Maya Lowlands during the past 2000 years was punctuated by several multidecadal- to centennial-scale drought events recorded in the Petén Itzá sediments. In particular, the period spanning the Maya Terminal Classic Period and the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), between 800 and 1300 CE, was marked by several extreme droughts and included the driest conditions of the past 2000 years between 950 and 1100 …

Comparative Study Of Proppant Transport In The Vertical Fracture For High Viscosity Friction Reducers And Slickwater Fracturing With High-Tds Marcellus Shale Formation Water, Xiaojing Ge, Abdulmohsin Imqam, Baojun Bai

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

High viscosity friction reducers (HVFRs) have been gaining more attention and increasing in use as proppant carriers. Reusing of produced water has also been driven by both environmental and economic benefits. However, high total dissolved solids (TDS) of produced water and high reservoir temperature significantly decrease the viscoelastic properties of HVFRs even for the cationic ones, which further reduce their proppant transport capabilities. Increasing loadings of HVFRs also has very limited effects on improving their proppant transport performances under high-TDS and high-Temperature conditions. The ultimate objective of this experimental study is to investigate the injection rate effects on the proppant …