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MAR/APR 2022 • ISSUE 2 • VOL 50

THE MAGAZINE OF CANADIAN ENERGY GEOSCIENTISTS

Reservoir cspg.org

GUSSOW 2022 EXPANDING HORIZONS

May 10-12, 2022 Earl Grey Golf Club | Calgary, Alberta

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN! About the Conference:

Early Bird Rates Available Until March 10th, 2022

Gussow 2022: Expanding Horizons will be a single-track, technical conference focused on three thematic areas: energy, water, and land. Invited contributions in each thematic area will be anchored in six core practices of CSPG members: crude oil and bitumen, shale gas, geothermal energy, carbon-capture and storage, noncombustible uses of carbon, and technology. At the intersection of each key area and core practice area, we will present a talk about the emergent needs and opportunities for earth science and scientists. By looking through the lenses of energy, water, and land we will tie the conference to the broader themes of transition, sustainability, and development. And by anchoring the talks to core areas of practice, we will be exposing participants to technical opportunities in what can be termed “the adjacent possible”, things you might not do today but can certainly do tomorrow.

Registration Information Individual Registration Rates: Early Bird Member Registration:

Group Registration Rates: $699.00

Registration x 5:

$3,000.00

Early Bird Non-Member Registration: $899.00

Registration x 10:

$5,750.00

Student Registration:

$450.00

VISIT WWW.CSPG.ORG/GUSSOW TODAY!

In This Issue

MAR/APR 2022

Letter from the Editor

From the Board

Go Take A Hike – The Erratics of Frank Lake, Alberta

13 2021 CSPG Award – Patricia J. Lee Trailblazer Award Recipient 14 2021 CSPG Award - Stanley Slipper Gold Medal Award Recipient 20 The Guinness Book of Sedimentology: Your guide to the world’s largest EVER sedimentary landforms Jon Noad | Sedimental Services | University of Adelaide

24 2021 CSPG Award – R.J.W. Douglas Medal Award Recipient 26 From the Desk of the AER 29 2021 CSPG Award – Medal of Merit Award Recipients 31 The Blue View: Industry Trends through Woodmac's Lens 33 Thank You to all the CSPG Sponsors

CONFERENCES

NEW E-TALK FORMAT!

GUSSOW 2022 PAGE 7 CORE CONFERENCE 2022 PAGE 28 MOUNTJOY 2022

PAGES 18-19

PAGE 2

2022 UPCOMING INFORMATION

CAMBRIAN TRILOBITES, BRITISH COLUMBIA Middle Cambrian trilobite-rich beds of the Burgess Shale are exposed on Mount Stephen in the Rocky Mountain Main Ranges near Field, B.C.. In this outcrop they include Olenoides serratus (spiky, top left) and Ogygopsis klotzi (smooth tail). The largest trilobite at lower right is 9 cm long. Trilobites are irregularly distributed along the Cathedral Escarpment. Recent research has suggested the existence of submarine springs and deep water brine pools that may have provided nutrient-rich habitat for the Burgess Shale fauna and may have been responsible for their variable concentrations. Photo by John Andersen.

RESERVOIR ISSUE 2 • MAR/APR 2022

FROM THE EDITOR TOM SNEDDON, PROFESSIONAL GEOLOGIST (ALBERTA), PROFESSIONAL GEOSCIENTIST

elcome to the first bits of glorious Spring! Well, after the March snows and annually unpredictable April weather, anyway. Golf season is coming. I hope.

This month, we present a heavy issue of your Reservoir, including:

• A missive from our Board, authored by Kiersten Mohr, the CSPG Publications Director • Go Take a Hike at the Ducks Unlimited Frank Lake Project to see shield erratics, under the wise guidance of Philip Benham, David Miller, and Nigel Atkinson • From the Desks of the AER cognoscenti, Laurance Jayawardane and Mahshid Babakhani a feast of Geomodelling at the Provincial Scale • Woodmac’s Lens on the North American financing trends, as interpreted by Scott Norlin, GIT and Brandon Myers This edition’s technical article from our resident nomad - Jon Noad:

• The Guinness Book of Sedimentology of really big landforms Once again, this edition reports on:

Best wishes from the Reservoir staff to all those whose work and volunteerism is much appreciated by the Society and the Trust.

• Our astonishing award winners: Jeanine Vany our Patricia J. Lee 2021 Trail Blazer in geothermal energy and Glen Stockmal, tectonics expert extraordinaire for the • A tribute article for Dr. Gerry Middleton, who passed away recently. Dr. Middleton taught Geology at McMaster University in Hamilton for many years and trained a cadre of CSPG members Don’t forget to check out the “Upcoming Events” information for a slew of division talks, technical webinars, conferences for May, June and August; including the Mountjoy Carbonate III at the Banff Centre in August. All of these count for Continuing Professional Development credits, which we tend to forget to amass before our professional society starts to nag us. Best wishes from the Reservoir staff to all those whose work and volunteerism is much appreciated by the Society and the Trust. That’s the wrap for Reservoir 2022 Edition 2 and we look forward to seeing your manuscripts for the remaining 2022 editions! Happy trails and prospecting to all our members. n

Tom Sneddon PUBLICATIONS INFORMATION The RESERVOIR is published 6 times per year by the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists. The purpose of the RESERVOIR is to publicize the Society’s many activities and to promote the geosciences. We look for both technical and non-technical material to publish. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced either in part or in full without the consent of the publisher. No official endorsement or sponsorship by the CSPG is implied for any advertisement, insert, or article that

RESERVOIR ISSUE 2 • MAR/APR 2022

appears in the RESERVOIR unless otherwise noted. All submitted materials are reviewed by the editor. We reserve the right to edit all submissions, including letters to the Editor. Submissions must include your name, address, and membership number (if applicable). The material contained in this publication is intended for informational use only. While reasonable care has been taken, authors and the CSPG make no guarantees that any of the equations, schematics, or devices discussed will perform as expected

or that they will give the desired results. Some information contained herein may be inaccurate or may vary from standard measurements. The CSPG expressly disclaims any and all liability for the acts, omissions, or conduct of any third-party user of information contained in this publication. Under no circumstances shall the CSPG and its officers, directors, employees, and agents be liable for any injury, loss, damage, or expense arising in any manner whatsoever from the acts, omissions, or conduct of any third-party user.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2022

PRESIDENT

PRESIDENT ELECT

PAST PRESIDENT

FINANCE DIRECTOR

Kelty Latos

Simon Haynes

Neil Watson

Erin Crerar

ConocoPhillips Canada Ltd. president@cspg.org LinkedIn

presidentelect@cspg.org LinkedIn

Enlighten Geoscience Ltd. pastpresident@cspg.org Linkedin

APEGA directorfinance@cspg.org Linkedin

FINANCE DIRECTOR ELECT

DIRECTOR

Kathy Diaz

Matt Adams

Nicholas Ayre

Mark Caplan

Petra Resources Inc. directorfinanceelect@cspg.org LinkedIn

University of Toronto outreach@cspg.org Linkedin

Rife Resources conferences@cspg.org Linkedin

Prairie Lithium technicaldivisions@cspg.org Linkedin

DIRECTOR

Shelley Leggitt

Mark Mallamo

Kiersten Mohr

Valentina Vallega

education@cspg.org Linkedin

Acquisition Oil Corp. fieldtrips@cspg.org Linkedin

Terra Firma Transition publications@cspg.org LinkedIn

Schlumberger membershipdirector@cspg.org Linkedin

OFFICE CONTACTS

CSPG OFFICE #150, 540 - 5th Ave SW Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2P 0M2 Tel: 403-264-5610 | www.cspg.org

MEMBERSHIP INQUIRIES Tel: 403-264-5610 Email: membership@cspg.org

CONFERENCE INQUIRIES Jennifer Lee Tel: 403-513-1233 Email: jennifer.lee@cspg.org

ADVERTISING INQUIRIES Emma MacPherson Tel: 403-513-1230 Email: emma.macpherson@cspg.org

MANAGING DIRECTOR Emma MacPherson Tel: 403-513-1230 Email: emma.macpherson@cspg.org

RESERVOIR ISSUE 2 • MAR/APR 2022

FROM THE BOARD KIERSTEN MOHR, CSPG PUBLICATIONS DIRECTOR

2022 Publications Update

O In 2022, we will leverage the Reservoir to build more connectivity with our Bulletins by introducing author interviews, abstracts, and other advertisements to increase members' awareness of the Bulletin content.

ver the last couple of years, the publications team has been focused on reimagining and updating our entire publication portfolio. This experience has helped me better appreciate the incredible amount of work behind the scenes for every publication our society publishes. Considering this, I have been impressed and incredibly grateful for the support and passion of our entire publications team, including the CSPG office staff, our editors, our editorial team, and the board of directors, as we have brought this new vision to fruition. As we begin 2022, Reservoir celebrates a full year of digital publications, and we will be releasing our first articles under our new Bulletin name and vision. I am excited and proud of this step for the CSPG, and I am confident that we have successfully optimized our processes to improve the experience for contributors and ensure that technical content will get into the hands of our membership faster. With this work behind us, in 2022, we now turn our focus back to engaging our members to contribute new and innovative technical content in new ways and getting that into the hands of our members as quickly as possible. Concerning the BCEG, in the first quarter of 2021, after much consultation, to refresh, update, and reimagine our Bulletin, the CSPG board decided to change our technical journal's name to the Bulletin Canadian Energy Geoscience (BCEG). Secondly, the board approved an initiative to introduce ahead of print publishing to ensure that authors' work gets to our members as fast as possible. Lastly, in 2021 our passionate editors, Dr. Jennifer Galloway and Dr. Hairuo Qing, worked to create a new vision that increased the Bulletin's scope and helped empower us to achieve our goal of the BCEG being the journal of choice for papers dealing with all aspects of energy geoscience. More specifically, submissions that address outstanding issues in energy geoscience include sedimentary geology, reservoir geology, stratigraphy, organic, igneous, elemental, and isotope geochemistry, paleontology and biostratigraphy structural geology, tectonics, geothermal, and environmental studies as they relate to traditional and new energy supply are welcome. Lastly, the BCEG team wants to extend an enormous thank you to Dr. Hairuo Quing for

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dedicating over six years as one of our editorin-chief roles. Soliciting and reviewing the vast technical content that has been published over this time is no small task, and we have all been grateful for Dr. Qing's support and service to the CSPG. Taking his place, the CSPG is excited to welcome Dr. Shahin Dashtgard to fill this role alongside Dr. Jennifer Galloway as the BCEG editors-in-chief. 2021 marked the first full year of our digital Reservoir, and we could not be happier with the uptake and engagement from our members. The digital platform dramatically increases how authors can publish information and the interactivity of the content. In addition, a digital platform allows our members to access and engage with this content across multiple platforms. Lastly, a comprehensive analytics tool helps our publications team increase awareness of what content is best received and optimize our delivery to maximize the needs of our members. In 2022, we will leverage the Reservoir to build more connectivity with our Bulletins by introducing author interviews, abstracts, and other advertisements to increase members' awareness of the Bulletin content. We are hopeful that this will provide additional exposure for contributing authors while also ensuring our members are aware of the new and innovative content in the Bulletin. I am excited and proud of what we have accomplished in our publications portfolio and look forward to continued evolution and engagement from our members. On that note, I will conclude by putting out two asks to our members. First, while we have improved and reimagined both Reservoir and the BCEG, these publications can and will only be successful with all of you. So, if you have technical content that you want to get out, engage with us, and our team can help you figure out the how. Secondly, if anyone would like to join our creative team to continue to curate meaningful and engaging content, please reach out, and I am confident we can find a rewarding role for you to fill! n

Kiersten Mohr

The CSPG Core Conference is coming up June 23-24, 2022! This year we are excited to present the theme: “Creating Opportunities and Charting New Horizons” Geologists are the trailblazers of the energy industry and we continue to share our science to rise to new challenges. This year we are pleased to announce an in-person event where we will celebrate and share geologic knowledge from a diverse set of plays, lithologies, and energy types. We look forward to engaging conversations in the company of old friends and new colleagues.

Registration Opens APRIL 2022

Welcome to the 2022 CSPG Core Conference. Planning is underway to hold the conference on June 23rd and 24th, 2022 at the Alberta Energy Regulator Core Research Facility. Like years of past, the conference will take place immediately after the annual GeoConvention. We are excited to return to an in-person event with a potential online hybrid component, allowing people to connect with each other while enjoying hands-on learning with top tier core in the AER’s flagship core facility. We are committed to ensuring our event allows everyone to meet in person within the provincial and facility event guidelines. This year’s theme is “Creating Opportunities and Charting New Horizons.” The two-pronged theme celebrates the resilience of petroleum geoscientists while exploring how we can leverage our skills to find value in new resources and energies. Here in one spot, we can celebrate top tier geotechnical work and innovations within our industry that can position Canada as a resource leader. This year’s conference will include core presentations from outstanding researchers, oil and gas practitioners, and renewable energy scientists. Please join us in returning to the core of our science by learning from the rocks and from the company of each other. We are excited to have presentations based on rock from across Western Canada and beyond that encompass enhanced recovery, carbon capture, conventional hydrocarbon reservoirs and new emerging resources. We are excited at the prospect of seeing familiar faces and meeting new ones in an environment where ideas are shared and celebrated. At the end of the final day of the conference, we are planning the return of the Core Meltdown where we can further catch up over the events of the previous two days in a festive environment. On behalf of the organizing committee, we thank you for your continued support of the conference and the CSPG. Core Conference updates will be posted to www.cspg.org/coreconference. Any questions can be sent to coreconference@cspg.org. We look forward to bringing together Canada’s geoscience community and seeing you in June! - Core Conference Committee 2022

GO TAKE A HIKE

The Erratics of Frank Lake, Alberta Philip Benham, David Miller, and Nigel Atkinson

Trailhead: Frank Lake is an approximately 45-minute drive south of Calgary. Take Hwy 2 south about 50 km from city limits and near high River, proceed east on Hwy 23 for about 5 km. The entrance to Frank Lake is on south side of road (green line on map). Continue a short distance to the parking lot. There are several other access points to Frank Lake for wildlife viewing, but we will focus on this one. Distance: Return distance is about 3.4 km when the gate is closed during the winter months. Elevation Gain: Negligible.

rank Lake is a shallow-basin marsh that formerly dried up during drought periods. With disturbance from agricultural drainage and other activities the lake was significantly reduced in area and was under threat as a home for wildlife and birds. Notably, during WWII the dry, alkali lake flats were used by RCAF Station High River as a relief runway. In 1988, Ducks Unlimited proposed restoration of the site to establish a more permanent body of water, increasingly critical for migratory birds. Water is now mixed source, including treated water from a meat processing plant (Cargill) and nearby municipalities, as well as agricultural runoff. The intention is that natural processes will clean the water as it slowly moves through the

FIGURE 1: Map of the basins that make up Frank Lake. Access road is green line, trail is yellow dashed line, effluent inlet line is red, and the outlet line is blue. There are two natural inlets (Mazeppa and Blackie creeks (respectively in the north and east corners of Basin 1). The outlet for the water is Little Bow River, which lies about 5 km SSE from Basin 3. Image: White and Bayley (1999). FIGURE 2: Intrusion breccia containing angular jumble of granitic, migmatitic, and mafic xenoliths or ancient agglomerate? You decide! The Canadian Shield is a composite of Archean continental plates, younger arc terranes, and sedimentary basins of Proterozoic age that largely assembled between 2.0-1.8 Ga during the TransHudson Orogeny (Corrigan et al., 2007).

3,100 ha of wetlands and eventually enters the Little Bow River to the south (though much is lost to evaporation). While water levels have been restored and are more regulated, a recent M.Sc. thesis by U. of C.’s Dongnan Zhu (2017) observed that since 1989 the increased water flow has resulted in sedimentation rates of about 4mm/yr and elevated total organic carbon, chloride (about 80x natural levels), phosphorus, and nitrogen concentrations. The current practice is not considered sustainable for the long-term health of the wetland or for downstream areas (Zhu et al., 2019).

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FIGURE 3: View of Basin 2 with bull rushes in the near distance. Note the white bands of salt lining the stems. The white patches in the top right of the picture are also thin crusts of salt formed during evaporative processes in the saline and organic-rich muds. The isolated stones poking through the low mat of red samphire are all Laurentide Ice Sheet erratics. Inset: Red samphire (Salicornia rubra) is a salt-tolerant and frost-resistant plant that can be eaten raw or steamed and buttered like asparagus (but given the source of the water we would suggest reconsidering sampling here). Figure 4: Migmatite xenolith hosted in granitic rock. Note the nearly vertical bands of mafic minerals within the clast and injections of felsic magma (the leucosome) frozen in the process of peeling off chunks of the xenolith. FIGURE 5: Close-up of mildly banded, finely crystalline dioritic gneiss (the paleosome) intruded by a white to pinkish coarse grained leucosome (granitic composition). Larger quartz crystals display growth orientation from the wall inwards. Scale: The smaller of the lichen is a few cm across.

There is no bedrock exposed on this hike, but there is one notable feature that provides key clues as to the position of the Cordilleran (from the mountains) and Laurentide (from the Canadian Shield) Ice Sheets towards the end of the last Ice Age. Exotic, ice-transported boulders, likely problematic to farmers when tilling the soil, have been lined up along most of the length of the trail to the bird-viewing blind. This Alberta-style ‘Stonehenge’ is mostly composed of boulders of Proterozoic granites and migmatites sourced from the Canadian Shield in NE Alberta and NW Saskatchewan. The 580 km-long Foothills Erratics Train (‘FET’, composed of Gog Group quartzites sourced from a Jasperarea landslide onto the ice) passes just to the west of here. The FET is about 20 km wide in this region and includes the Big Rock in Okotoks, a 30-minute drive to the northwest. The FET has long been considered to mark the boundary between the Cordilleran and Laurentide Ice Sheets during the late Wisconsinan. Another site, off the map about 5 km west of High River on the north bank of the Highwood River at the 5th Meridian (114° West), contains interpreted Laurentide basal till with approximately 1% of the clasts being Laurentide in origin. This point marks the westernmost evidence for the Laurentide ice in the High River Area (Jackson et al., 1999).

Erratics observed along the roadway include granites, granodiorites, quartz diorites (and their gneissic equivalents), gabbro, possibly highly metamorphosed sediments, and also un-metamorphosed Paleozoic carbonates. Many of the igneous rocks have been partially to nearly completely re-melted and deformed as the consequence of multiple intrusive cycles. Metamorphism and deformation helped drive the melting of the intruded rocks and also the mineralogical segregation of the layered crystal ‘mush’ that makes the common banding in migmatites (rocks that are a mixture of rock types). Relatively unmelted portions within the migmatite reflect the original rock or paleosome, (‘paleo’ meaning ‘old’) while the re-melted or partially melted portions are called the neosome (‘neo’ meaning ‘new’). The neosome usually separates into a lighter coloured quartzo-feldspathic portion or leucosome (‘leuco’ meaning ‘light’) and a darker ferromagnesian and aluminous / calcic rich suite of minerals or melanosome (‘melano’ meaning ‘dark’). The leucosome may remain in situ, or, depending on its liquidity and the forces at play, be injected into nearby rock (Maxeiner et al., 2017). Xenoliths, the fragments of the country rock plucked from the fringes of the magma chamber, sink into the magma where they are deformed, fragmented, or dissolved further before finally freezing in place. Look for these features on your hike.

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FIGURE 6: Erratics lined up along the roadside on the trail to the bird-viewing blind at the shore of the lake. FIGURE 7: Close-up view of pink garnet crystals that have formed in a granitic gneiss. Note the separation of light and dark minerals and the tendency of garnets rich in iron and magnesium to grow in the dark bands.

FIGURE 8: Large diorite xenolith enveloped by granitic gneiss. Note the fracturing of the xenolith and injection of quartzofeldspathic leucosome (white arrows). The deformed shape of the injection fractures points to the ductility of the clast as it neared its melting point.

FIGURE 9: Another dioritic xenolith displaying abundant internal deformation. The dominance of dark minerals in the melanosome reflects the original composition. In places, the boundary between the xenolith and the rest of the rock is not sharp because of the outward growth of mafic minerals from the clast (white circle).

FIGURE 10: Swans flying over Basin 1. Frank Lake is excellent for birding. FIGURE 11: Highly deformed migmatite xenolith displaying separation of leucosome and melanosome. Numerous black angular fragments suggest injection and shear of host rock in the magma chamber.

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FIGURE 12: Intrusion breccia – oriented, elongate, and angular mafic xenoliths hosted in a pinkish, potassium feldsparrich matrix. FIGURE 13: Not all the erratics are igneous, as in this brownish-weathering boulder of dolomitic crinoidal packstone. FIGURE 14: Numerous stromatoporoids in another boulder point to a Paleozoic, likely Devonian, source for the boulders in the last two figures. Given the regional SW movement of the Laurentide Ice Sheet these are possibly from outcrops in NE Alberta. The Beaverhill Lake Group, exposed along the banks of the Clearwater and Athabasca rivers, near Fort McMurray may be one such source. FIGURE 15: LiDAR map displaying the glacial flowset reconstructions around Frank Lake (based on mapped landform associations). The ENE-directed Cordilleran flow is shown as red lines, while the South- and SW-directed Laurentide ice movement is displayed as blue. The red dots show the distribution of mapped quartzite erratics attributed to the FET. The yellow star marks the approximate position of the Okotoks Big Rock.

You will see that the confluence between both ice sheets was not fixed in either space or time, and periodically overprinted each other, particularly during deglaciation, when the Laurentide Ice Sheet sporadically re-advanced along fan-shaped margins. The shape of Frank Lake is controlled by a series of low ridges, which are remnants of recessional push moraines deposited during brief pauses or re-advances as the Laurentide Ice Sheet continued its retreat northwards at the end of the last glaciation. These recessional moraines are some of the best preserved features of their type in the province. On the map they appear as a series of U-shaped ridges and swales, extending in a corridor from the Bow River to a point well south of Little Bow River.

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FIGURE 16: The Canadian Shield contains at least nine ancient Archean micro-continents (cratons or provinces). The cratons date back to very early in Earth history: the Acasta Gneiss outcropping north of Great Slave Lake is about 4.0 Ga (Izuka et al., 2007). Even older is a 4.2 Ga basaltic xenolith contained within a granite near Inukjuak on the east coast of Hudson Bay (O’Neill and Carson, 2017). This piece of oceanic crust existed only a few hundred million years after the formation of the Earth. The cratons themselves were part of three different supercontinent assemblies dating back to 2.7 Ga or more. They reached their current configuration between 2.0 and 1.8 Ga when the Slave, Hearn, and Rae provinces appear to have collided with the Superior Province, sandwiching between them remnants of oceanic crust, island arcs, deep marine strata,

and smaller Archean continental plates (such as the Sask and MetaIncognita). The collision created the Trans-Hudson Orogen, a deformed region as much as 1,000 km wide and over 2,000 km long, oriented roughly SW-NE and running through NE Alberta, Saskatchewan, Hudson Bay, and Baffin Island. The dashed blue line marks the known surficial extent of the Trans-Hudson Orogen. The Snowbird Tectonic Zone (STZ on the figure) marks the boundary between the Rae and Hearn provinces. In most of Alberta these continental fragments can be mapped westwards as magnetic anomalies under the Phanerozoic cover until the heating beneath the mountains obscures them. The erratics at Frank Lake (blue star in far southwest corner of map) are likely sourced from the Rae and Hearn provinces. Figure from Wodicka et al., 2014.

REFERENCES Corrigan, David, Galley, Alan, and Pehrsson, Sally, 2007; Tectonic evolution and metallogeny of the southwestern Trans-Hudson Orogen; p. 881-902. Izuka, T., Komiya, I., Ueno, Y., Katayama, I., Uehara, Y., Maruyama, S., Hirata, T., Johnson, S. P., and Dunkley, D. J., 2007; Geology and zircon geochronology of the Acasta Gneiss Complex; Precambrian Research, v. 153, p. 179 -208. Jackson, L. E., Jr., Leboe, E. R., Little, E. C., Holme, P. J., Hicock, S. R., and Shimamura, K., 1999; Late Quaternary geology of the Foothills: from Calgary to the Alberta-Montana border, a field trip presenting highlights of findings by the Eastern Cordilleran Natmap Surficial Geology Mapping Team; CANQUA 99 Conference Field Guide. Maxeiner, R. O., Ashton, K., Card, C. D., Morelli, R. M., and Knox, B., 2017; A field guide to naming migmatites and their textures, with Saskatchewan examples; In: Summary of Investigations 2017, Volume 2; Saskatchewan Geological Survey, Saskatchewan Ministry of the Economy, Miscellaneous Report 2017-4.2, Paper A-2, 21 p . This is handy to take on the hike.

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Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/321732517_A_Field_Guide_to_Naming_ Migmatites_and_Their_Textures_with_Saskatchewan_ Examples. O’Neil, J. and Carlson, R., 2017; Building Archean cratons from Hadean mafic crust; Science, v. 355, no. 6330, p. 1199-1202; DOI: 10.1126/science. aah3823. White, J. S. and Bayley, S. E., 1999; Restoration of a Canadian prairie wetland with agricultural and municipal wastewater; Environmental Management, v. 24, no. 1, p. 25-37. Wodicka, N., St-Onge, M., Corrigan, D., Scott, D., and Whalen, J., 2014; Did a proto-ocean basin form along the southeastern Rae cratonic margin? Evidence from U-Pb geochronology, geochemistry (Sm-Nd and whole-rock), and stratigraphy of the Paleoproterozoic Piling Group, northern Canada; Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 126, p. 1387-1415; https://doi.org/10.1130/B31014.1. Young, R., Burns, J., Smith, D., Arnold, L., and Rains, R., 1994; A single, late Wisconsin, Laurentide Glaciation, Edmonton area and southwestern

Alberta; Geology, v. 22, p. 683-686; https://doi. org/10.1130/0091-7613(1994)022<0683:ASLWLG> 2.3.CO;2. Zhu, D., 2017; Wastewater treatment assessment in a flooded wetland using water and mass balances (Frank Lake, Alberta, Canada); University of Calgary, M.Sc.; https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/11023/3791. Zhu, D., Ryan, M., and Gao, H., 2019; The role of water and mass balances in treatment assessment of a flooded natural wetland receiving wastewater effluent (Frank Lake, Alberta, Canada); Ecological Engineering, v. 137, p. 1-76; https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ecoleng.2019.01.010.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: VISIT WEBSITE

Jeanine Vany, Executive Vice President of Geosciences at Eavor Technologies, has a vision: to bring geothermal energy to Western Canada and to the world - and maybe solve food security issues in remote Yukon communities along the way.

Jeanine started blazing this trail in 2016, working on geothermal feasibility studies in Western Canada in the evenings after her day job in oil and gas. Her work on a 2017 study, presented to the Government of Alberta, helped pave the way for Alberta’s Geothermal Resource Development Act (Bill 36) which laid the groundwork for geothermal resource development in Alberta. Her consulting work with the Alberta Geothermal Corporation, led her to co-found Eavor Technologies in 2017, an energy technology company with the world’s first closed-loop geothermal system. Jeanine’s work with Eavor has resulted in significant innovations in geothermal energy concepts. Unlike traditional geothermal technologies, the ‘Eavor Loop’ concept employs a scalable closed loop to internally circulate fluid through the subsurface and collect heat, much like a radiator. This concept can be deployed outside of the high permeability and ultrahigh heat gradient locations normally targeted for geothermal energy. Jeanine provided geoscience expertise to develop and pilot the world’s first closed-loop geothermal system in 2019, Eavor Lite, near Rocky Mountain House, Alberta. She picked the location for the trial based on her geological mapping and provided prognoses to successfully connect lateral wells toeto-toe. She also provided geological input for grant applications and white papers to raise ~$100MM in capital for the project. She co-founded Eavor Yukon to advance geothermally heated greenhouses in northern Canada, acting as Board Chair and VP Geoscience. Eavor Yukon is a collaboration with the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation (co-owners of Eavor Yukon), to bring energy

from closed-loop geothermal technology to the North to reduce reliance on trucked in diesel and LNG and support food security. Eavor projects are underway in the Netherlands to provide heat for district heating and greenhouses, while projects in Germany will put renewable electrons to the grid and bring heat to the town of Geretsreid.

2021 CSPG Award Recipient

PATRICIA J. LEE TRAILBLAZER AWARD

She now leads a team of geoscientists in Canada and in German. Together, they are developing and applying new geological and execution workflows for closed loop geothermal projects in Europe and North America. Collaboration is at the heart of what Jeanine has created. She has worked closely with the Calgarybased technical experts in geomechanics, geology, and horizontal drilling operations from such companies as Enlighten Geoscience, Petrel Robertson, Chinook Consulting and GLJ Energy Consultants, to harness the local inter-disciplinary technical expertise for new applications in geothermal projects, both here and abroad. Jeanine’s focus on collaboration is not confined to her work with Eavor; she also makes great efforts to support and promote the next trailblazers in the geoscience and energy communities. In 2019 Jeanine founded the CSPG Geothermal Division, and in 2020, she became Canada’s Country Ambassador for Women in Geothermal. She has chaired multiple convention sessions and given countless talks on geothermal energy to share her story and promote diversity, equity & inclusion initiatives both within Eavor and across industry. Jeanine is currently a Fellow at the Energy Futures Lab to address the

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Award Recipient

complex sustainability challenges in today’s energy systems and was recently elected to the Geothermal Rising (GR) Board holding the Energy Advocate Seat. Jeanine supports the Redevelop Program through the University of Calgary, the SWITCH program, and is helping to create a Geothermal Chapter for the joint University of Calgary and Canadian Society for Unconventional Resources (CSUR) ‘Massive Open Online Courses’ (MOOC).

Through Jeanine’s efforts, a new generation of Canadian geologists have found inspiration to pursue studies and launch careers in an industry that did not exist in Canada until she proved it could be done. Her innovation and collaborative nature bringing people together is blazing new trails toward her vision of re-imagining the potential for geothermal energy on the planet.

Award Recipient Interview

FUNDAMENTALS OF GAS RESERVOIR ENGINEERING

APRIL 12 | 9:00-5:00

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LEADER: KAMAL MALICK

R EG I ST E R TO DAY

The Stanley Slipper Gold Medal is amongst the highest honours awarded by the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists. The medal is presented annually for outstanding contributions to petroleum exploration and development either in Canada or by Canadian-based petroleum geologists working internationally. The contributions of the winner of this award may encompass one or more activities including initiating and/or leading exploration or development programs, making significant discoveries on new or existing exploration trends, applying new technologies to exploration and exploitation, and teaching and/or training of petroleum geologists. In contrast to other C.S.P.G. awards, the Stanley Slipper Gold Medal Award recognizes, in part, accomplishments in business and in the broader petroleum industry through the application of the knowledge of petroleum geology. The award is limited to individuals. Candidates must be alive at the time of their selection. The winner must be a petroleum geologist and a C.S.P.G. member.

The Stanley Slipper Gold Medal for 2021 has been awarded to Dr. Thomas (Tom) Moslow, in recognition of his outstanding career. During more than 40 years, Tom has worked for several Canadian oil and gas energy companies, has taught, and supervised graduate students as a professor at two Alberta universities, and has conducted numerous core studies, field trips and professional development courses as a consultant. He has personally discovered several new oil and gas pools in Cretaceous and Triassic strata. He became a leader in the exploration and development of the Triassic Montney Formation. His fingerprints have been present in many of our industry’s successes, directly through his mentorship and teaching of both students and industry geologists. Tom has distinguished himself by prominently leading the application of modern depositional environmental interpretations through core-based observations to determine reservoir trends and to predict new subsurface hydrocarbon pools. The Stanley Slipper Gold Medal has been awarded to Dr. Moslow based on his outstanding contributions to petroleum exploration and development in Canada. Dr. Moslow received his B.Sc. degree in Marine Science from Southampton College of Long Island University (1975) and his M.Sc. in Marine Geology from Duke University (1977). He earned his Ph.D. in Geology from the University of South Carolina (1980), having researched modern depositional environments, coastal processes, and sedimentology under the excellent mentorship of Dr. Miles O. Hayes. Tom then worked as a research geologist at the Cities Service Technology Center from 1980 to 1983 in their exploration and production research groups and is grateful for the supervision he received there from Dr. Roger Slatt. From 1983 to 1987, Tom held joint appointments as an assistant professor in the School of Geoscience at Louisiana State University and as a supervisor in the Louisiana Geological Survey, applying his expertise in coastal sedimentation to projects mitigating coastal erosion. Tom also served as Assistant Director of the Basin Research Institute at L.S.U. where the mentorship provided by Drs. Arnold Bouma and Clyde Moore laid a foundation for interpretations that Tom applied later in his career.

2021 CSPG Award Recipient

STANLEY SLIPPER GOLD MEDAL AWARD

DR. THOMAS (TOM) MOSLOW

In 1987, Tom moved to Canada to join the University of Alberta as an Associate Professor. He was promoted to Full Professor in 1994. Tom credits the late Drs. Charlie Stelck and George Pemberton with creating an exciting and interactive environment in which to pursue research in sedimentology. With his very first NSERC grant, Tom decided to focus on something “unique” and started by looking at cores in the bioclastic-rich rocks of the Middle Triassic Halfway and Doig formations. He directed his graduate students to apply the insights gained

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from modern analogs to guide interpretations of the depositional environments and facies that they observed in core. His interpretations of core often “just clicked” because he could relate them to the modern environments that he had studied earlier. Tom prided himself in training students to think beyond their basic interpretations and make predictions of where they could find new reservoir trends. He felt that this was critical, not only for the benefit of their future employment, but also to provide meaningful application of their research to the oil and gas industry. The University of Alberta’s Dean of Science once told Tom that he admired Tom’s teaching abilities “because every one of your graduate students gets a job.”

Dr. Tom Moslow’s technical leadership/mentorship and his outstanding advancement of major hydrocarbon plays in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin through the application and prediction of sedimentology and reservoir distribution, make him the deserving recipient of the C.S.P.G.’s Stanley Slipper Gold Medal Award for 2021.

During the 1990s, Tom turned his attention and geological curiosity towards the Triassic Montney Formation. Tom recalls his first insight into the potential of the Montney occurred when a colleague asked him to look at a thin, sharp-based sandstone/ siltstone bed in a Montney core at the former Charlie Lake core warehouse. Tom immediately recognized a complete Bouma sequence. It was an exciting moment when he realized that there were preserved turbidite deposits within the downdip portion of the Montney, supporting basin floor fan potential.

In late 1992, Tom was working with Dr. Graham Davies, with whom he had developed a highly successful Triassic-focused shor t course. They had also just advertised a proposal to conduct a regional Triassic study that included Montney turbidite potential when Conwest Exploration announced the Valhalla Montney turbidite discovery, far downdip of the known Montney shoreface/subcrop edge. Despite skeptics in the industry, Tom and Graham began to publish some of the earliest turbidite interpretations based on Montney core descriptions. Tom gives credits to Dr. Davies whose creative influence and partnership over the years have had a profound positive impact on Tom’s work. In 1995, after eight years at the University of Alberta, Tom took a sabbatical leave to work with Canadian Hunter Exploration Ltd. He spent much of that summer conducting field work on the Lower Cretaceous outcrop trends along the Front Ranges of northeastern B.C., mapping the lateral variability of conglomerates and other facies in the Falher Formation. At the end

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of his sabbatical, Canadian Hunter offered Tom a position as a Senior Geological Advisor that he accepted. He then applied his knowledge and skills from the outcrop and cores to unravel and predict subsurface Falher depositional trends and reservoir development for Canadian Hunter’s drilling program. Robert Sadownyk recalls Tom passionately guiding many development teams through Falher outcrops and cores during those days at Canadian Hunter. Together with the petrographers, Tom developed a reservoir model used to discriminate economic clastsupported conglomerates from uneconomic matrixsupported conglomerates based on core and cuttings descriptions. Successful whipstocks (before the era of unconventional reservoir drilling) were drilled on Tom’s prediction of these reservoir trends. In 1997, during a memorable lunch with Fred Woods, Tom was asked to join Ulster Petroleums Ltd., a startup, as its Chief Geologist. Tom remembers this as a “fun, exciting time,” having success in exploring many subsurface Cretaceous and Halfway/ Doig targets in Alberta and British Columbia. His work resulted in many commercial successes with discoveries across the Wapiti, Alberta area and into B.C., as well as the building a Regional Studies Group of 15 full-time geoscience professionals. Tom recalls having Fred’s unequivocal support (as company president) to complete an oil-stained Halfway interval that the engineers planned to abandon due to low resistivity. A bit of fist-pounding on the table resulted in a phone call to Fred and support for completing the well, which successfully flowed at 500 bopd. Fred continues to view Tom as one of the best Deep Basin experts. Tom’s friendship with Fred continues to this day. Dr. Greg Baniak of Petronas Energy Canada comments that “it was during these initial opportunities in the mid-1990s that Dr. Moslow also developed a keen business sense and recognized that multiple opportunities abounded in the world of private equity.” In 2000, Fred and Tom helped co-found Midnight Oil and Gas, and raised a $15 million blind pool. Although these were stressful times for Tom, as Halfway wells cost $1.5 million each, Midnight’s production quickly grew to over 4000 bopd. In 2004, Midnight leveraged and completed a reverse takeover of an American company, Vintage Oil and Gas. This resulted in the creation of a royalty trust, Daylight Energy, and the spinoff of a new entity, Midnight Oil Exploration. In 2006, Tom dropped his Vice President role at Daylight Energy Trust to work solely at Midnight Oil Exploration. Greg notes that “Within Midnight Oil Exploration Tom served as Senior Vice President Exploration and helped build a world-class resource base of over 2 TCF of contingent reserves in the western Canadian Deep Basin.” In 2009, Tom continued to demonstrate his expertise, as Senior Vice-President Exploration of Pace Oil and Gas Ltd., a company created through a large strategic $450 million reverse merger of Midnight Oil Exploration

and Provident Energy Trust's production business. Working again in partnership with Fred Woods, Tom pursued liquids-rich resource plays, applying tight gas technology and horizontal completions. In December 2011, Tom left Pace to form his own independent consulting business (Moslow Geoscience Consulting Ltd), providing technical services for numerous Canadian oil and gas exploration companies, particularly for Montney evaluations. Matthew Adams worked with Tom at Progress Energy Canada Ltd. on evaluating Talisman’s very large Montney asset in northeastern British Columbia. Matt writes “Dr. Moslow’s work was pivotal in Talisman’s $1.5 billion divestment to Progress Energy… Dr Moslow is the only remaining consultant (at Progress/Petronas) from the transaction and remains there today.” Matt writes of Tom’s exceptional interpretation skills, “To this day, Tom maintains his roots of tying the reservoir back to modern depositional analogs through detailed core analysis. The back of his core viewing lab coat reads ‘Rocks don’t lie.’ Together with his former graduate student, Dr. JohnPaul Zonneveld, Tom co-created a Montney course that has become an industry standard for geologists. JP notes that “Tom has presented dozens of C.S.P.G. and A.A.P.G. conference presentations and numerous C.S.P.G. luncheon presentations on a diverse variety of topics pertaining to Canadian petroleum geology… and served as advisor and mentor to generations of geoscientists employed in the Calgary petroleum industry and in academia.” Tom still holds an Adjunct Professor position with the University of Calgary and was the editor and a co-author of the two volume Special Issue on the Montney Formation of Western Canada, published by the C.S.P.G. in 2018.

During his career, Tom received many best paper awards at various C.S.P.G. conventions and was the coordinator/ contributor for many core workshops. Dr. Zonneveld writes, “Tom has been a leader in the advancement of several quintessential Canadian conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon “To this day, Tom maintains his plays including the Spirit roots of tying the reservoir back River … the Falher … the Doig-Halfway ... and most to modern depositional analogs significantly the Montney play, through detailed core both throughout the 1990s analysis. The back of his core as a conventional gas and viewing lab coat reads ‘Rocks oil reservoir and most recently as Canada’s premier don’t lie.’" unconventional … play.” Tom’s friends know him to be an avid Yankees baseball fan, committed runner and dedicated family man. In addition to all his accomplishments, all those who have worked with Tom comment on his down-to-earth personality, his humble, respectful demeanor, and his ability to bring out the best in people. Above all, Tom’s exceptional passion for geology and lifelong learning (‘always going to school’) is present in all aspects of his work. Dr. Tom Moslow’s technical leadership/mentorship and his outstanding advancement of major hydrocarbon plays in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin through the application and prediction of sedimentology and reservoir distribution, make him the deserving recipient of the C.S.P.G.’s Stanley Slipper Gold Medal Award for 2021.

Award Recipient Interview

RESERVOIR ISSUE 2 • MAR/APR 2022

2022 UPCOMING EVENTS INFORMATION March 15th Tuesday | 12:00 - 1:00 pm (MST)

GeoWomen

VISIT

Discovering your passion in the energy transition

UPCOMING EVENTS

Rochelle Longval with Moderator: Emily Smejkal

March 19th Saturday | 9:00pm – 4:00pm (MST)

Paleontology Technical Division

MARCH March 9

Wednesday | 12:00pm - 1:00pm (MST)

International Technical Division Fast tracking International Natural Gas Surface Production Facilities allowing for an early monetization of the full molecule Speaker: Mauricio Meineri

March 10th

Paleo 2022: 25th Annual Symposium

March 22nd Tuesday | 12:00pm - 1:00pm (MST)

Basin Analysis and Sequence Stratigraphy/ Environment Technical Division Dam Removal on the Elwha River, Washington, U.S.A.: River and Coastal Response Speaker: Amy East - US Geological Survey, Santa Cruz, California, USA

March 30th Wednesday | 12:00pm – 1:00pm (MST)

Thursday | 12:00pm – 1:00pm (MST)

International Technical Division

Geothermal Technical Division

A Geoscientist's Perspective of Geothermal Energy

Co-Produced Geothermal Power in Swan Hills/Beaverhill Lake Reef Speakers: Lisa Mueller, President and CEO, FutEra Power and Matthew Forth, Exploitation Manager, Razor Energy

Speaker: Peter Bauman M.Sc., P. Geol

March 31st Thursday, | 12:00pm – 1:00pm (MST)

Technical Division Early Triassic Hothouse and Nutrient Stress Prolongs Recovery From the World’s Most Severe Mass Extinction Speaker: Dr. Steve Grasby

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2022 UPCOMING EVENTS INFORMATION APRIL

April 7th Thursday | 12:00pm to 1:00pm (MST)

Structural Geology Technical Division Advances in Understanding Fault Zone Structure and Prediction of Fluid Flow Behaviour

April 13th Wednesday | 12:00pm - 1:00pm (MST)

International Technical Division Exploring for the K-P (formerly K-T) mass extinction event in outcrops in Angola, Cuba, North Dakota, Saskatchewan and Alberta Speaker: Tako Koning

Speaker: Dr. Christopher Wibberley

April 14th

April 8th

Thursday | 12:00pm – 1:00pm (MST)

Friday| 7:30pm – 8:30pm (MST)

Paleontology Technical Division Main Talk: Evolution of Temperate Vegetation in North America. With Brief Talk: Quarrying of the Ordovician Tyndall Stone, Garson, Manitoba Main Speaker: Alexander J. Lowe and Brief Speaker: Tako Koning

April 12th Tuesday | 9:00am – 5:00pm (MST)

Short Course

Geothermal Technical Division Geothermal Resources, Reserves and Risks Speaker: Ann Robertson-Tait

April 26th Tuesday | 12:00 - 1:00 pm (MST)

GeoWomen The Reluctant Creative: 5 Effortless Habits to Expand Your Comfort Zone (no arts and crafts required) Dr. Caroline Brookfield with Moderator:David Hills

Fundamentals of Gas Reservoir Engineering Instructor: Kamal Malick, P. Eng

April 12th Tuesday | 12:00pm - 1:00pm (MST)

Basin Analysis and Sequence Stratigraphy Technical Division Offshore and Transitional Cardium Reservoir Evaluation for Tight Oil, West Pembina Boundary, Alberta, Canada. Speakers: Adam Fraser and Dr. Per Kent Pedersen

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The Guinness Book of Sedimentology: your guide to the world’s largest EVER sedimentary landforms JON NOAD | SEDIMENTAL SERVICES | UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE

There is something about really BIG things that always grabs people’s attention - look at dinosaurs for example. The geological record is littered with the extreme and today we will explore the biggest, the tallest, the deepest and steepest sedimentary structures and landforms ever to grace our planet. Depositional environments ranging from fluviolacustrine and aeolian, coastal environments and a range of marine settings have been studied to identify the record breaking dunes, bars, channels, deltas, sheet sands, canyons and more. Every example discussed is depositional rather than simply geographical, so no mountains but plenty of sand and a little limestone. Each “giant in its field” is then compared to the largest modern example to get a sense for just how different ancient environments were when stacked up against their recent counterparts. Obviously, we are missing some ancient examples due to erosion through time, but with what remains, will there be more ancient examples or modern ones? Read on and find out. We will also examine which time periods favoured the biggest ever sedimentary landforms and consider what global cycles might be responsible.

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TITANIC TERRESTRIAL SETTINGS Our journey begins in the foothills, seeking the largest braid plain. Back in the Precambrian, rivers were unconstrained by vegetation leading to some enormous braid plains. The most valuable, covering a third of South Africa, fills the Witwatersrand Basin with gold bearing conglomerates. However, this example is dwarfed by the largest modern braid plain flanking the Brahmaputra River, estimated to cover more than 650,000 km2 (Fig 1), although parts of it are more meandering. While we are on meandering rivers, have you ever wondered what is the thickest point bar? The Amazon River drains 7 million km2 and reaches 100 m water depth, with point bar deposits up to 38 m in thickness. However, Alberta’s McMurray Formation (Fig 2) has individual packets of inclined heterolithic stratification up to 58 m thick, deposited by a truly gargantuan river system that may have originated in the Mississippi region, draining the north American continent. Separating alluvial fans from distributive fluvial systems (DFS) can be challenging. The Taklimakan Fan in China (Fig 3), 61 km in length, is the world’s largest alluvial fan at 3477 km2, while the much larger Kosi Megafan (15000 m2) is considered to be a DFS. Preservation potential of ancient alluvial fans is fairly low, as they are often related to tectonic

active regions, and potentially the largest known in the fossil record are the Triassic fans of southern Devon, significantly smaller at around 30 km in length, feeding material from uplifted massifs. When investigating huge landforms, there are some givens. Everyone knows that the largest sand dunes are in Namibia, right? Dune 7 is 383 m tall (Fig 4) which is only a quarter of the height of the Duna Federico Kirbus, adjacent to a mountain range in Argentina (1230 m tall). Obviously these dunes are composite, but they comfortably outweigh the stunning red, aeolian sediments of the southern US. The entire Wingate Formation is only 609 m thick but probably had some enormous dunes developed in the arid interior of Pangaea. Preservation potential for desert deposits is usually very poor. Where is the largest lake? Lake Baikal is larger by volume, 23,013 km3, containing 20% of Earth's fresh surface water. The Caspian Sea has a greater surface area, around 370,886 km2, and Lake Chad is only slightly smaller, though mostly dried up now. Fortunately, the Pleistocene Lake Agassiz of Canada and the US (Fig 5), a proglacial lake formed by meltwater and dammed by ice, comfortably outdoes both. It covered around 440,000 km2, an area larger than all the Great Lakes combined. When it drained, it created an estimated 2.8 m rise in global sea levels. The world’s largest ever flood originated in the same region, at roughly the same time, when Lake Missoula washed away its ice dams with flows up to 386 million m3/ second. It flooded more than 44,700 km2 of terrain, almost double the area in Bangladesh, where up to 26,000 km2 is flooded most years. The flow was strong enough to carve giant ripples into the landscape (Fig 6). Finally in this section, the world’s largest waterfall is the Angel Falls in Venezuela, plunging 807 m with a discharge of 16990 m3/second. While

ancient waterfall deposits have a very low preservation potential, we know that sea level rise in the Upper Miocene, following the Messinian Salinity Crisis, created a waterfall that filled the Mediterranean in less than 2 years (Fig 7). The slope of the Falls was probably gentle, but the drop was 1500 m with an estimated peak discharge of over 100,000,000 m3/second, carving a 250 km long channel through the Straits. If you had a time machine, this would surely be one of the world’s greatest ever sights.

COASTAL COLOSSI We have already mentioned the Cretaceous McMurray Formation. A giant river should have a giant estuary, which for simplicity includes its incised valleys, giving a 300 km long basin with palaeo drainage extending throughout. Preservation potential is high in such settings, as estuaries usually form due to sea level rise, which eventually caps them with marine sediments. Turning to modern estuaries, facilitated by Holocene sea level rise, the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada has an estuarine channel (Fig 8) that is 1197 km long, with its Gulf covering 226,000 km2. A worthy champion. In contrast, fossil mangroves are considered to have low potential for fossilization. The Miocene Santanyi Formation of Mallorca covers around 50 km2, similar to the Purbeck Limestone, while the largest ancient deposits may be associated with the Eocene London Clay and its Nipa fruits, with the entire Formation covering around 10,400

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km2, of which perhaps 10% were mangroves. This is much smaller than the mighty Sundarbans of Bangladesh and India (Fig 9), at around 10,000 km2.

The Ganges Delta is associated with both the Sundarbans and the largest braid plain, and is the world’s largest delta at 105,000 km2, but is simply outclassed by the little known Middle Triassic Boreal Ocean Delta. It covers 1,650,000 km2, around 1% of the Earth’s surface (Fig 10) and drained northern Pangaea. Meanwhile the longest continuous beach is trumpeted across the internet as Praia do Cassino Beach, Brazil, at 254 km, but this is half the length of Swakopmund Beach in Namibia, and only a third the length of the CadaleyDhimbii coast in Somalia (Fig 11: 700 km long and 910 km to drive). Limited preservation potential probably explains why the longest beach in the fossil record, from the Permian Waterford Formation of South Africa, is only around 90 km in length. I suspect that much longer beaches occurred in both the Western Epicontinental Seaway and in the Book Cliffs region.

MARINE BEHEMOTHS The next category is difficult to define, the longest shoreface. I used a world seabed sediment map to find the longest expanse of sand, offshore Argentina, which may be continuous. However, the Cambrian Gog Quartzite of Alberta stretches for an estimated 2300 km. The Okotoks Erratic is made of this quartzite. Our only carbonate is invoked for the biggest reef. The Middle Devonian Canning Basin covers 17,500 km2, but there may be much bigger Jurassic and Cretaceous reefs in the Middle East. The Great Barrier Reef of Australia, covering an area of 344,000 km2, is very difficult to beat for size (Fig 13), as potentially gigantic Carboniferous reefs have, for the most part, been eroded away.

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The biggest barrier island, Fraser Island (Fig 14), lies off the coast of Australia. The largest sand island in the world, it has an area of 2700 km2, a mere bagatelle when compared to the Cretaceous Hoadley Gas field of Alberta, with an area of 3,885 km2. The field holds an estimated 6 to 7 Tcf of gas. Finally, the world’s longest submarine canyon is the NAMOC (Northwest Atlantic Mid-Ocean Channel) canyon (Fig 15), which is up to 7.5 km wide and 3800 km in length. The longest ancient canyon that I could find was offshore Louisiana, where an unnamed canyon in the Paleocene Wilcox Formation reaches around 90 km.

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS The Giants are sprinkled fairly evenly around the globe (Fig 16: modern giants in yellow; ancient giants in orange), although there are two areas where more are concentrated. Modern giants are located around the Ganges Delta, while many Cretaceous landforms are situated in north America. It is likely that several better options are located elsewhere on the map, as the examples chosen were limited by the research capabilities of the author. Technically, to undertake a thorough survey of these structures would involve reading every paper ever written on every depositional setting – a mammoth task indeed, and we are only scratching the surface with this article: there are at least one hundred different landforms that I could have included. A summary chart for ancient giants (Fig 17) shows several global cycles including Plate Tectonic settings; Number of extant Continents; Global Temperature and Global Sea Level through time. Against this I have plotted the ancient giants from each depositional setting (the settings are colour coded from proximal to distal). There is a cluster in the Triassic, no doubt related to the formation of Pangaea; and a second in the Neogene, affected by the Ice Ages. It seems that global temperature extremes are the major driver in the creation of the sedimentary giants. Counting up the results, we have SEVEN ancient giants and EIGHT modern giants. Clearly this is an example of preservation bias at work, as it seems very unlikely, to paraphrase Walther, that “the present is more extreme than the past”. I hope to look at more examples from the ancient record and welcome suggestions for more candidates. I would also like to expand to look at the largest bedforms, such as trough cross-beds, ripples, flutes, sand waves and more. Defining these features will probably be even more challenging than it was for the giant landforms. Meanwhile look out for the next Christmas best seller: Guinness World Sedimentary Records!

PLEASE NOTE: Most of the figures are from Wikipedia and NASA. Attributions for the other images are available from the author, along with many references used to create the article. Much of this data was originally presented at BSRG 2019 and at Geoconvention 2020.

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2021 CSPG Award Recipient

R.J.W. Douglas Medal Award Dr. Glen Stockmal is a distinguished geoscientist whose careful and detailed studies have led to important advances in understanding the nature and timing of tectonic events and the response of foreland sedimentary basins to these tectonic events. This work has been used to establish the Paleozoic tectonic framework that influenced the Mesozoic rift basin on the Atlantic margin of eastern Canada and to link the deformation history of the Cordillera to the stratigraphic history of the foreland basin in Alberta and British Columbia. In both areas this work has improved the understanding of petroleum potential. He truly emulates the scientific qualities of Dr. R.J.W. Douglas through his careful field work, detailed, multi-disciplinary studies, and his passion for integrating stratigraphy, structure, and tectonics.

DR. GLEN STOCKMAL

Glen received a B.Sc. from the University of Manitoba (1977), an M.Sc. from the University of Calgary (1979), and a Ph.D. from Brown University (1983). Following a post-doctoral fellowship at Dalhousie University, in 1985 he joined the Geological Survey of Canada in Dartmouth, N.S. In 1991, having endured a dozen years living out of sight of the Rockies, he transferred to the GSC’s Calgary office, where he has been involved in a variety of structural geology activities. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology from 2004 to 2009 and received a CSPG Tracks Award for his service. Glen has throughout his career used stratigraphy and sedimentology combined with a knowledge of regional tectonics, geodynamics, and local structural analysis to create an integrated understanding of the geological development of two very different parts of Canada. His initial work with the GSC focussed on Atlantic Canada and the development of the Appalachian orogenic belt and the Atlantic offshore margin on the regional scale but also lead to a detailed model for the interplay of different structural styles with syn-orogenic sediments in western Newfoundland. Subsequently, the GSC’s NATMAP program provided opportunities to apply similar methods to understanding the complex structural and stratigraphic relationships in the southern Foothills of the eastern Canadian Cordillera in Alberta and British Columbia and in the Northern Rockies of northeastern BC. Recent regional compilation work in the southern Rockies and Foothills was done within the context of understanding the linkages between Cordilleran deformation and the stratigraphic responses within the Mesozoic foreland basin.

Glen's scientific work is characterised by careful, detailed study incorporating information from field mapping, geophysics, sedimentology, stratigraphy, thermochronology and thermal maturity, and geodynamic modelling. Glen’s major contributions have been: 1. In his early career Glen was involved in some of the classic research on geodynamic modelling of developing thrust belts and the resulting flexure of the lithosphere creating the subsidence and accommodation space in foreland basins. This work is still relevant and is extensively referenced to the present day. 2. Multidisciplinary studies on the deep structure of the Atlantic margin in Eastern Canada that led to a better understanding of the Appalachian orogen and the subsequent Mesozoic rifting that created Late Paleozoic and Mesozoic basins with significant hydrocarbon potential. The subsequent detailed work undertaken by Glen and colleagues on Western Newfoundland helped to spur significant hydrocarbon exploration in the Cambro-Ordovician carbonates of the area.

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3. Mapping and compiling the structure and stratigraphy of the southern Canadian Rocky Mountain Front Ranges and Foothills of Alberta and British Columbia, in conjunction with colleagues as part of the Geological Survey of Canada’s NATMAP and SCES initiatives, which covered an area approximately 35 000 km2. A key outcome of this work has been the detailed characterization of the triangle zone at the eastern margin of the Foothills and the development of tectonic models with significant implications for the distribution of hydrocarbon accumulations along this trend. This combined with Glen’s and colleagues’ detailed bedrock geological maps of the entire area have provided a comprehensive overview of the structural and stratigraphic controls on oil and gas fields from Turner Valley south to the US border.

5. In mid-career as well as more recently, Glen refocussed on quantitative geodynamic modelling of thrust-and-fold belts at subcrustal to lithospheric scales to better understand the thermomechanical evolution of orogens and their associated sedimentary basins. Fine-scale thin-skinned thrust belt models illustrated the mechanical interactions between the formation and relative timing of brittle-field thrust sheets and the intimately associated surface erosion and foreland and piggy-back basin sedimentation, with application to the Alberta Foothills.

During his career at the Geological Survey of Canada, Glen has been extremely fortunate to work with so many outstanding colleagues and friends in the GSC, universities, industry, and provincial surveys. He has published numerous peer reviewed journal papers and special publication contributions, and GSC Bedrock Geological Maps, Current Research and Open File reports, and field guidebooks based on his and co-authors’ work.

Mark Cooper, 13th Feb 2022

Award Recipient Interview

2021 CSPG Award Recipient

4. Relating the tectonic evolution of the Canadian Cordillera to the depositional history of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin, specifically the Mesozoic foreland basin that developed as the orogen developed. The linkage between Cordilleran deformation and depositional events in the Mesozoic foreland basin in Alberta and British Columbia provided an important, if perhaps under-recognised technique, to better predict the age and potential distribution of source and reservoir facies in the basin.

RESERVOIR ISSUE 2 • MAR/APR 2022

From the Desk of the AER Laurence Jayawardane and Mahshid Babakhani

Geomodelling at the Provincial Scale: Geological Framework of Alberta, Version 3

The Geological Framework is a multi-year geomodelling program at the Alberta Geological Survey (AGS) initiated in 2012 to integrate publicly available subsurface data into a unified and geospatially consistent interpretation of Alberta’s subsurface. Rather than a ‘fit for purpose’ model, the Geological Framework of Alberta (GFA) is a multi-disciplinary model. The provincial-scale 3D geomodel spanning from the ground surface to 6 km below sea level, can be used to support a wide range of applications. Version 3 (v3) was released to the public as an interactive portal in late 2021, which makes input and output data from the geomodel available to all interested parties, within a web-based mapping interface.

GFA v3 builds upon the previously published model versions, with increased data density for pre-existing model zones and the addition of newly delimited zones (Figure 1). New subdivisions to the model improve the vertical resolution in the Cambrian, Ordovician, lower to middle Devonian and late Permian to Upper Cretaceous units. The Cambrian and Ordovician Strata have two additional zones. In the Lower and Middle Devonian, the Elk Point Group has twelve additional zones. In Triassic to Jurassic strata, the Diaber and Schooler Creek Groups have been defined. Above the sub-Cretaceous unconformity, new zones have been included for the following groups: Mannville, Fort St. John, Colorado and Smoky groups.

MODEL OVERVIEW

This version of the model was published using ArcGIS Online, a web-based interface that provides users the ability to export the GFA v3 data in multiple data formats and supports direct links to certain commonly used software platforms. It provides a provincial, 3D geospatial context to any spatially referenced data or information, accessible to all Albertans at no cost, with multiple visualization tools available.

In this version, each model zone was composed of a single cell (pillar) in the vertical direction due to computational limitations of building such a geographically extensive model at such a high resolution. This resulted in artificially vertical model zone edges along the 3D grid pillars for some zones, such as along the deformation edge, or between zones that were differentiated based on arbitrary nomenclature boundaries or had insufficient input data to properly define the boundary.

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GFA v3 is a static, discrete, deterministic 3D geocellular model consisting of zones representing various groupings of Alberta’s subsurface. The model is limited to the geographic extent of the province and excludes the Rocky Mountain deformation belt due to the lack of available data. Structural elements were not explicitly modelled (fault planes, fold geometries), and the 3D grid type chosen was a structured pillar grid with vertical pillars. Horizontal resolution (grid cell spacing) is consistent throughout the model at 500 m by 500 m.

FIGURE 1

MODELLING STEPS We followed a similar geomodelling approach as for version 2 (v2), which consisted of: input data quality control (QC), interpolation of intermediary 2D elevation grids, and 3D modelling (Figure 2; GFAv2 reference). Notable updates between GFA v2 and GFA v3 included a new bedrock topography grid, and newly interpreted and legacy wellbore stratigraphic picks. QC of the input data was a major component of this project, and modelling workflows enabled for faster re-calculations of the 3D grids after receiving updates to the input data from our team of geologists upon their review of the modelled grids. We used four methods of comprehensive and iterative data analysis and QC to assess new wellbore stratigraphic picks that were submitted to the modelling team to update the GFA model: manual stratigraphic analysis, database queries and rules, outlier detection analysis, and geomodelling zonal relationships. As a result, some picks previously used as input for GFA v2 were identified as erroneous and removed. Individual top and base grids were interpolated for each model horizon sequentially, starting first with major erosional (unconformity) surfaces to help define and properly characterize the geological relationship of the units between these zones (Figure 1). These grids were either lithostratigraphic or chronostratigraphic, based on the interpretation methods used to generate the input wellbore picks datasets. Although this version of the model was constructed using a consistent deterministic modelling approach, our plan is to build future versions of the GFA using a variety of interpolation algorithms selected based on criteria to optimize data availability, distribution, and quality with an understanding of the anticipated geological complexity.

FIGURE 2

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UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS

GFA V3 HUB

We assessed the uncertainty of each of the intermediate top and base grids using a similar methodology as previous versions of GFA. A measure of their global uncertainty was calculated as the root-mean square error (RMSE) between input data and the value of interpolated surface, which resulted in a single value for the average estimation error for the entire grid (Figure 1E).

We published GFA v3 as an interactive website that provides access to the model's input and output data, which can be visualized, filtered, modified and queried directly within a web browser or can be downloaded free of charge. The home page is organized to enable easy filtering of the hundreds of data items, either by data type (point data, modelled elevation surfaces, areal extents, depth to surfaces, 3D grids, vertical thickness or uncertainty grids) or by geological interval. New Story Maps have been added that contain additional information about certain model zones.

To better understand how uncertainty varies throughout the grid domain, a measure of the local uncertainty was calculated using an in-house methodology. This helped to pinpoint specific locations of higher uncertainty, which could be due to varying levels of data quality, low data density, model parameters, and/or geological complexity. These uncertainty grids give a measure of the level of confidence of the interpolated surface relative to the data, and represents the standard deviation of multiple subset realizations of the input surface at each grid node location. Providing uncertainty measurements for all grids is essential so that end-users and/ or decision makers are comfortable with the information they are receiving.

IN CLOSING For more information and access to the GFA v3 model: geological-framework-program. We welcome your feedback; please email us at geological.framework@aer.ca n

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS We encourage participants from academia, industry, government, and students to share the latest advances in carbonate-related research. The committee invites contributions from the following broad themes: Dolomitization New Integrative Methods Paleoenvironmental Indicators Inorganic Precipitated Carbonates Organic Precipitated Carbonates

Geochemistry and Diagenesis Big Data and Machine Learning Bold New Ideas Resources in Carbonates

Submit abstract by March 15th www.cspg.org/mountjoy

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The Medal of Merit has been awarded since 1952 and is the most prestigious and oldest technical award of the society. The medal is awarded annually for the best peer reviewed paper on a geological subject related to the petroleum geology or the geology of energy generation and extraction, of Canada. The stated objectives of the Medal of Merit Award are to promote the preparation and publication of geological papers of high quality, to give honorable recognition to works of merit, and by means of suitable publicity, to bring the attention of the members and of the public to the activities of the geological petroleum profession by awarding the Medal of Merit annually for the best paper. The Medal of Merit is awarded to a paper published during the previous publication year, in this case for peer reviewed papers published in 2020.

The paper awarded the Medal of Merit for 2021 was written by A. Hutter and L. Beranek and is titled “Provenance of Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous synrift strata in the Terra Nova oil field, Jeanne d’Arc basin, offshore Newfoundland: A new detrital zircon U Pb-Hf reference frame for the Atlantic Canadian margin” The paper was published in the AAPG Bulletin, Vol 104, No. 11, p. 2325-2349 (November 2020). The paper reviews detrital zircon analysis from three wells Late Jurassic Jeanne d’Arc Formation, Terra Nova oil field, offshore Newfoundland and places the results into the regional paleogeographic setting. The detrital zircon data show three broad age populations: 1) Archean to Early Neoproterozoic; 2) Neoproterozoic to early Paleozoic; and 3) Mesozoic and are interpreted to be sourced from the Eastern North American Craton, Gondwanan and Appalachian terranes, and north Atlantic rift assemblages, respectively. The authors interpret the zircon populations to be similar

to the time equivalent Upper Jurassic sandstones in the Flemish Pass Basin ~400km to the northeast. A unique zircon age population common to each basin that provides a minimum depositional age is the 145ma population and suggests magmatism during deposition. The 145ma population is absent in the overlying Cretaceous sandstones in the Flemish Pass Basin and a common sediment source for the Jurassic fluvial deposits in the Jeanne d'Arc and Flemish Pass is interpreted.

2021 CSPG Award Recipients

MEDAL OF MERIT AWARD

This work is an important contribution to Canadian petroleum geology literature as it provides new insight into the timing of rifting and paleogeographic evolution of the oil bearing Upper Jurassic sandstones offshore Newfoundland. This insight provides context to help guide paleogeographic interpretations in the sparsely drilled offshore and can be applied to future exploration programs.

Ross Kukulski – Chair Medal of Merit Committee

ALEX HUTTER Alex Hutter earned a B.S. in Geology at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire in 2016, and his M.Sc. in Earth Sciences from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 2019 with a thesis on the provenance of economically productive reservoir sandstones in the Jeanne d’Arc basin, offshore Newfoundland. Since then, Alex has worked on the exploration team investigating strata-bound Zn-Pb-Ag deposits in Arctic Alaska, conducted LiDAR surveys throughout British Columbia assessing geological hazards and infrastructure integrity, and currently works for Pioneer Exploration as a Geophysics Field Manager. His work at Pioneer focuses on subsurface and surface characterization using a variety of UAV-borne techniques including magnetometers, hyper- and multispectral analyses, and LiDAR surveys throughout Canada, Alaska,

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Award Recipients

and the southwest US. His professional interests include working to expand the application and utilization of UAVs to explore for and delineate mineral and hydrocarbon resources in the subsurface. He hopes to expand his use of these UAV-borne sensing techniques to the contribute to the renewable energy sector, and the protection and conservation of freshwater resources and biodiversity both in Canada and globally.

LUKE BERANEK Luke Beranek received his B.S. in Geology from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire in 2003, M.S. in Geosciences at Idaho State University in 2005, and Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from the University of British Columbia in 2009. His interests in circum-Arctic tectonics and paleogeography resulted in postdoctoral research positions at the Geological Survey of Canada from 20092011 and Stockholm University from 2011-2013. He joined the Department of Earth Sciences at Memorial University of Newfoundland in 2013 and is currently an Associate Professor with interests in tectonics, stratigraphy, and sedimenthosted natural resources. Luke and his students are currently focused on the Newfoundland-Iberian conjugate margin system, especially the source-to-sink histories of the Jeanne d’Arc, Flemish Pass, and Lusitanian rift basins.

CSPG Industry Membership Bundles are now available for 2022.

www.cspg.org 30 R E S E R V O I R I S S U E 2 • M A R / A P R 2 0 2 2

The Blue View: Industry Trends Through Woodmac’s Lens NORTH AMERICA IN CONTEXT: OVERARCHING THEMES ACROSS THE INDUSTRY GUIDANCE 1. CANADIAN DISPLAYS CAPITAL EFFICIENCY:

Capex is growing, but restraint still holds after you consider the companies spending in 2022 are bigger entities following 2021 consolidation. Capital spending is still expected to be below 2019 levels.

MAJORS ARE RAMPING 2. THE UP IN THE PERMIAN:

between the majors, Chevron and Exxon, our corporate team is expecting 175,000 boe/d of Permian growth in 2022 alone. For Chevron this represents a staggering US$1 billion increase in Permian related capital expenditures versus the 2021 budget. This translates to roughly a 50% increase in wells brought online.

SURGING WITH WTI: 3. NOT The U.S. rig count hasn’t kept pace with the WHY IS TIGHT OIL SUPPLY

recent increases in WTI. In part, our analysis suggests that investors still want to see debt levels drop. Completion intensity has also tempered in some areas of the Permian, where a “less is more mentality” is occurring. Finally, gas weighted areas and infrastructure are commanding more capital. Put another way, WTI might not be the only marker worth watching.

CANADA: n Guidance season shows growth with capital

discipline still front of mind:

Guidance season is upon us. Of the 28 Canadian-focused companies that we have tracked, capital investment is expected to reach Cdn$20.49 billion (US$16.14 billion), a 24% increase from 2021. Midpoint production guidance is 5,480 kboe/d, a 370 kboe/d or 7% increase from 2021. Reinvestment rates are expected to be low. In the oil sands, 2022 reinvestment rates sit at only 37% at a US$90/bbl Brent price. If prices fall to US$70/bbl Brent, the reinvestment rates still only creeps up to 59%. Operators have used M&A as a means of growth, with names like Spartan Delta Corp, Tamarack Valley and Tourmaline leading the way. n Non-core assets marketed across the WCSB as oil

tops US$90/bbl:

Several announcements have come from operators looking to sell off non-core acreage across the WCSB. A few of the key announcements have come from TAQA North, Crescent Point, Enerplus and Imperial/Exxon Mobil. As prices have increased and the tight supply markets are expected to continue, excess acreage and assets could net operators significant returns if buyers emerge within Canada. M&A in 2022 is expected to be active once again, although to a lesser extent compared with 2021.

n Lower 48:

The Permian powerhouse is alive and well: We’ve recently updated our Permian, Midland and Delaware type curve reports to reflect recent increases in commodity prices. The results? The Permian is as domineering as ever. The WTI price needed for several of the Delaware sub-plays is under $20/bbl and $30/bbl in the gas and liquids weighted areas respectively. The Midland sub-basin of the Permian is not far behind, here the core sub-plays breakeven between $28/bbl up to $40/bbl. Highlights from our last update: • Locations, locations, locations: Between the two Permian subbasins there is a staggering 78,715 remaining locations in inventory with a weighted 10% WTI breakeven of $37.17/bbl. • Produced water: In this update we’ve created produced water curves for each sub-plays. In the Fringes of the Permian the water-oil-ratio can reach a staggering 15:1. In the core, a water to oil ratio of 5:1 is more indicative of the average. Considering the play is currently producing over five million barrels per day of oil, the amount of water being produced now and in the future is staggering. • Gas matters less and less: Sensitivity analysis of the top five sub-plays in the Delaware suggest that the local gas hub, Waha, could go to $0/mcf and these sub-plays would still be able to generate a 10% return. All that is needed is for WTI prices to remain over $51/bbl, nearly $40/bbl less than the current WTI price.

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PERMIAN HORIZONTAL RIGS VS WTI (ANNUAL)

n The majors are getting serious about the

Permian:

ExxonMobil highlighted “nearly 100K boe/d” of year-overyear Permian growth in 2021, averaging approximately 460K boe/d for the full year. During its Q4 earnings call, management also outlined an expectation for further growth of 25% in 2022, translating into about 115K boe/d of full-year incremental production. While ExxonMobil’s Permian outlook was arguably higher than expected, Chevron outlined more modest Permian growth last week. It refrained from providing specific Permian guidance, but management spoke of “about maybe 10%” year-over-year growth”. Full-year Permian production was 608 kboe/d, implying growth would be about 60 kboe/d. The two US majors should contribute about 175 kboe/d of Permian growth in 2022. Chevron’s 2022 Permian budget, which is up 50% from US$2 billion to US$3 billion (with a 50% increase in wells brought onstream) certainly points to growth.

Below we outline a few of the factors that are limiting tight oil growth:

Supply is not keeping pace with WTI what’s holding it back? In our view – tight oil production grows slower than it did coming out of the last big price correction. In previous years we had a lot more rigs at much lower prices. It is a 20/20 rule. Twenty percent less growth compared to the 2017 rebound, but with US$20/bbl higher prices. We highlight the Permian as it contributes 86% of all Lower 48 liquids supply growth over the next five years and remains the bellwether Lower 48 play for production changes.

1. Gearing ratios (debt/equity) are still too high. Investors still want operators to pay down more debt. 2. Completions designs have tempered in many areas. Take the Permian Core Lea sub-play as an example. Proppant loading has decreased roughly 150 lbs/ft per year since 2018. As a result, cumulative 180-day volumes are down as well. In some instances, they’ve dropped as much as 30%. 3. Gas attracts capex. Henry Hub front month is over US$4.75/ mcf at the time of writing – will also incentivize Permian players to drill gassier acreage west and south. Compared to the H2 2021 cost stack, the “Gas West” sub-play now sits at the bottom of the Permian cost curve. Watch companies like Chevron to allocate more capital to gas-rich assets. Reduced Permian flaring and greater capture will change gas economics even more.

SCOTT NORLIN, GIT

BRANDON MYERS

Research Analyst, Upstream Canada

Senior Analyst – Lower 48 Upstream

Scott joined the Canadian Upstream Research team at Wood Mackenzie in June 2019. He is responsible for providing financial asset valuation and objective commercial analysis on company and play activity across Canada. His coverage ranges from North American large caps to junior private producers. He also covers CNRL and Cenovus for the corporate analysis team, providing high level company valuation and strategy analysis.

Brandon is a senior analyst with our Lower 48 research team. Having joined Wood Mackenzie in 2017, he has worked on the integration of subsurface data with L48 research and conducted research into every major unconventional play in the US and Canada.

DISCLAIMER – THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS STATED BELOW ARE BASED ON WOOD MACKENZIE’S DATA, SOURCED FROM PUBLIC SOURCES ACROSS THE GLOBE AND OUR PROPRIETARY TOOLS SUCH AS LENS.

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Dedicated to supporting its members since 1927, the CSPG continuously offers new opportunities to enhance their skills and enrich their experiences, from events to publications to receiving grants to awards and much more. Join CSPG, and:

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