21.2.2013

upcoming DRT conference in Leuven, Belgium

Please note the 18th DRT conference Deformation, Rheology, Tectonics in Leuven, Belgium from September 16th-18th 2013 in Leuven, Belgium, and the relating website here. We are happy to support the conference manager Manuel Sintubin.

Abstract submission – 31 May 2013, Early bird registration – 30 June 2013, conference - 16-18 September 2013

7.2.2013

RPR at DGMK conference 2013

RPR contributions were accepted as oral and poster presentations at the annual DGMK conference (Deutsche Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für Erdöl, Erdgas und Kohle e.V.) in Celle in April 2013. The conference's topic is on Best Practices - Erwartungen an neue E&P Technologien .

20.2.2013

Invited talk in Bochum on Oman

Chris presented some insight on beautiful Oman, entitled "Weihrauch, Wüste, Wadis  - Oman: Ein geologisches Wunderland auf dem Weg in die Neuzeit" at the Gesellschaft für Geographie und Geologie in Bochum e.V.. Cultural as well as geological aspects were addressed, exposing the beauty of the country. Oman exposes the Jabal Akdhar anticline and Jabal Shams mountains, an almost 3000m peak formed during Alpine orogeny and closure of the Thetys ocean. Carbonate reservoirs in Meszoic rocks, carbonate stringers, piercing salt domes, the Wahiba Sands desert and the obducted Semail ophilithe are just a few of many geological wonders of the Sultante.

21.1.2013

We now have WLan

We now can provide WLan to our students on the 5th floor with kind support of the Center for Computing and Communication of RWTH Aachen University.

23.12.2012

Merry Christmas

The EMR-Group wishes a merry christmas to our partners, colleagues and friends, and a happy and successful 2013.

23.12.2012

Merry Christmas

The RPR team thanks our partners, colleagues and friends for our excellent and fruitful collaboration and wishes a merry xmas, and a happy and successful 2013.

18.-19.12.2012

Workshop Hydrocarbon Resevoirs 

The EMR-Group is running a workshop on the "Petrophysics and Geochemistry of Unconventional Hydrocarbon Reservoirs", organized by Yves Gensterblum from the Institute of Geology and Geochemistry of Petroleum and Coal. We host guests from Australia, Netherlands and the UK here in Aachen, both from academia and industry. Chris gives a presentation on Structural Diagenesis – some insights from field analogs and see-through experiments.

08.12.2012

First Graduation Ceremony at GUtech in Muscat, Oman

Today the first graduation ceremony was held at the new campus of German University of Technology in Halban near Muscat, Oman. Professor Burkhard Rauhut, Rector of GUtech since 2008, and Dr. Dorothea Rüland, Secretary General of the German Academic Exchange Service DAAD gave the words of greetings. The graduates were addressed RWTH Aachen's Rector Professor Ernst Schmachtenberg. 30 Bachelor graduates dressed in an black academic gown, among them five geoscientists, received their final certificate. GUtech is a limited liable establishment owned by local investors (see interview in Spiegel Special 5/2008 with Prof. Rauhut), and was designed in 2006 and put into operation by Barbara Stäuble and Christoph Hilgers in 2007. We are happy to see the first graduates in Urban Planning, IT, Sustainable Tourism and Geosciences leaving the university and wish them all success.

28.11.2012

Stephan Becker's PhD defended

Today Stephan Becker successfully defended his PhD in front of a committee by Prof. Peter Kukla, Prof. Janos Urai and chaired by Prof. Klaus Reicherter. We congratulate Dr. Becker and are happy to keep him at RWTH!

28.11.2012

Lecture honoured

Today our lecture Reservoir-Petrology II (12ss-33528) was honoured among the top faculty's courses, based on student evaluation. We have to admit that we were surprised, since student's workload is quite high. RPR thanks our  students for the positive evaluation.

16.11.2012

Foot unscrewed

After a nasty graben-like fracture of Chris' foot and its rearrangement with bolts and a plate last year, diagenesis cemented the fractures well. Today the metal pieces were taken out, and this unwanted and hopefully first and last self-study on structural diagenesis came to an end. Thanks to the hospital's expertise back home the same day, many thanks!

13.11.2012

Professor awarded

Today Christoph Hilgers, Institute of Reservoir-Petrology, received the apl. professor certificate from the faculty's dean Professor Ralf Littke. In a small ceremony in the deanery, Chris' academic contributions were acknowledged. Chris expressed his gratitude to the faculty, the student board and all others who supported the award.

13.11.2012

Klaus Vogel presents his MSc GRM to businessmen

Klaus Vogel, MSc, presented his Master Project at the Energy Center in Willich to local businessmen, municipality and local energy suppliers. After a short introduction by Willich's major Josef Heyes, Klaus outlined the questionary he developed for the business park in Willich. He described the needs, economic potential and requirements for the local industry to move towards geothemal energy. After his presentation, the stimulating discussion urged the need for further projects.

4.-7.11.2012

Stephen Laubach, Christoph Hilgers and Mark Evans organize a GSA Special Session on Structural Diagenesis

Stephen Laubach, Christoph Hilgers and Mark Evans organized a GSA Special Session on Structural Diagenesis at the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, Nov 4th – 7th 2012, 4.-7.11.2012. Their session T171 The Role of Structure and Diagenesis in Governing Fluid Storage and Flow in Deep Sedimentary Basins with Applications to Unconventional Oil and Gas Reservoirs (GSA Structural Geology and Tectonics Division; GSA Sedimentary Geology Division; GSA Hydrogeology Division; GSA Geophysics Division) on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday had a very good response, with Peter Hennings from ConocoPhillips Subsurface Technology addressing the keynote.

18.10.2012

Rob and Linda visit RPR

We welcome Rob Lander and Linda Bonnell at RPR for an exchange of ideas and extended collaboration. Rob and Linda develop the Reservoir Quality Prediction software Touchstone and the crystal growth program Prism2D, which will complement our current and future research. More can be found on their company's website http://geocosm.net/

17.-22.9.2012

Field trip: Climb active volcanoes

This week we are off to Sicily and the Eolian Islands with our Bachelor students. We will study some of the active Mediterranean volcanoes and get a better insight into our dynamic planet and its underlying processes. We will climb the active volcanoes Vulcano, Stromboli and Etna and study the rocks of Lipari island.

16.9.2012

Farewell Omani students

Today our Omani geology students from GUtech in Muscat are heading home. We wish a save journey, a warm welcome at home and hope to see you soon back in Germany or in Oman.

10.-15.9.2012

Field Seminar S-England

This week we run our field seminar for Master Students in S-England. We will study cliff exposures of Triassic and Jurassic porous siliciclastic reservoirs, Jurassic fractured carbonate reservoirs and source rocks of the Blue Lias and Kimmeridigian along the Bristol Channel and British Channel. We will analyze and discuss depositional environments, facies, diagenesis and structures, and will take rocks samples for organic geochemistry analyses (MSc course Organic Geochemistry by Jan Schwarzbauer).

27.8.-9.9.2012

Omani students at RPR

We welcome Omani students from the German University of Technology in Aachen, who will stay with us for a language course and geology classes on petrography. Our continuous exchange of Omani students to RWTH Aachen and RWTH students to Oman is now in its 3rd year.

21.8.2012

GSA Session accepted

We are happy to announce that our GSA session T171. The Role of Structure and Diagenesis in Governing Fluid Storage and Flow in Deep Sedimentary Basins with Applications to Unconventional Oil and Gas Reservoirs was accepted by the Geological Society of America GSAat Charlotte, North Carolina, Nov 4th – 7th 2012, 4.-7.11.2012

23.7.2012

Subseismic flow barriers

We will now start a funded project on flow barriers in the Rotliegend. The German Rotliegend is an important hydrocarbon reservoir in sandstone, whose structural diagenesis is not yet fully resolved. We'll try to contribute, addressing different cementation patterns and the flow behavior.

15.7.2012

Field trip for Industry

We will guide a field trip to an unconventional tight gas reservoir analogue for geologists and reservoir engineers from industry on Sunday. Rock exposures similar to those explored in the deep subsurface - thus neither accessible nor visible unless using wells and seismics - are important to understand the reservoir's complexity.

9.7.2012

New Paper out

A new paper on "A Procedure for Integrating Geologic Concepts into History Matching" in Society of Petroleum Engineers, SPE 159885-PP has been published by Sofie and co-authors.

27-28.6.2012

Unconventionals

We examined some phantastic outcrops on Mesozoic Posidonienschiefer and Paleozoic Alaunschiefer across Germany, and checked whether and how these unconventional reservoir rocks can be studied in more detail.

22.06.2012

Poster Award Geotag

Congratulation to our Master Students Rabea Viße and Annett Hufe who won a poster award at the Geotag 2012 conference. Master projects at RPR cover coupled field- and thin section work, experimental work and reservoir-related outreach.

22.06.2012

Geotag 2012

Please note our annual Geotag meeting, which brings together Industry and students with interesting presentations from Geoscientists working in different applied fields. Our RPR-students Annett, Klaus, Philipp and Rabea will present their first poster on their ongoing projects. This year's Geotag will start at 9.30 am at RWTH Aachen, Couvenhalle (opposite RWTH's central building). Please have a look at the LIH website for further details.

03.06.2012

Scotland field seminar retuned home safely

Today all eighteen Bachelor students returned home safely from the one-week field seminar in Scotland. Starting with 25+ weather conditions, some snow on the munroes and beautiful sceneries, we studied some world-class exposures in Glen Coe, Ballachulish, Appin and on Kerrera island. Unconformities, volcanoes, plutons, regional and contact metamorphism, sedimentary and deformation structures in sedimentary and crystalline rocks are not anymore nice textbook pictures but real. A drop in temperatures to +12 kicked-off the standard Scottish weather period with some drizzle and wind. Some could even experience horizontal rain. Midges were a bit nasty this year. We started to work on indivudual areas in the Mamore mountain ridge, and successfully created a map of our field area. Combined with theory sessions we developed a good understanding of the underlying processes, and after some physical training everyone returned home safely and well tanned. Click on Galleries for some photos.

Our young Geoscientists (geosciences being the youngest of the natural science subjects) are guided to well exposed world-class case studies to get a profound understanding of earth system processes in space and time.

26.05.2012

Scotland field class

Our education in the field start end of May, running a field seminar in the Scottish Highlands. Weather conditions are as usual, don't forget warm clothing and a good sleeping bag.

10.-11.05.2012

Unconventional Shale Gas

Chris participates in AAPG's Unconvential Shale Gas Conference in Warsaw, Poland. Shale gas offers a huge additional energy resource.

5.5.2012

Field Seminar

Please note today's Wurmtal field seminar, starting 8.30h in front of the Bergbaugebäude / miners building. Expected return 18h. Please bring your bicycle.

4.5.2012

Development of image analysis tools

Today we discuss the potentials of modern image analyses with the Deparment of Life Science Informatics at the Fraunhofer Institute at Bonn Sankt Augustin, since automated analyses of of digitized rock data contains huge potentials.

24.4.2012

Cemex

Today we visited Cemex and are happy that we can carry out some geological studies in their Upper Carboniferous quarry.

19.-20.4.2012

Energy conference

Chris and Prof. Kukla attend the DGMK conference in Celle on primary energy resources and energy storage.

17.4.2012

Press article

Newspaper release: "Den Geopfad punktuell reaktivieren, Egon Keller traf sich mit Wissenschaftlern und Erich Schell in Blankenheim" in Kölnische Rundschau, Nr. 90, p. 35 highlights the need of geological awareness in public, which was initiated in the Eifel region by Prof Werner Kasig, who visited the lovely village of Blankenheim together with Chris

16.4.2012

McKinsey at Department of Geosciences

Chris welcomes McKinsey at the School of Geoscience to present the company's profile and discuss career opportunities.

12.4.2012

Contact-free geochemical visualisation tool

Chris explores the potential of new contact-free image tool used in biology on the chemical alteration and porosity of rocks and outcrops at another university... successfully!

30.3.2012

RPR at TSK conference

Francesco presents his research on fractures and fracture cements of carbonate reservoir rocks at the TSK14 conference in Kiel in an oral presentation. Dennis and Stefan have a poster presentation on their laser scan of a carbonate reservoir analogue and Upper Carboniferous unconventional rocks, respectively.

21.3.2012

Geopfad Blankenheim

We explore the status quo of the Geopfad in Blankenheim and work out if and how we may contribute to improve the quality of this geology-hike.