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About Keith Patton
Expertise
I can answer questions concerning physical and historical geology, environmental geology/hydrology, environmental consulting, remote sensing/aerial photo interpretation, G&G computer applications, petroleum exploration, drilling, geochemistry, geochemical and microbiological prospecting, 3D reservoir modeling, computer mapping and drilling.I am not a geophysicist.

Experience
I have 24 years experience split between the petroleum and environmental industries. I have served as an expert witness in remote sensing, developmental geologist, exploration geologist, enviromental project manager, and subject matter expert in geology and geophysical software development.

Organizations
American Association of Petroleum Geologists
American Association of Photogrammetrists and Remote Sensing

Education/Credentials
Bachelor and Master of Science
Registered Geologist in State of Texas

You are here: Experts > Science > Geology > Geology > paleontology

Geology - paleontology

Expert: Keith Patton - 10/28/2009

Question
please giv me every bit of details about what and how microfossils help in petroleum exploration,please giv d ans.as soon as possible

Answer
Maria:

Microfossils are abundant in marine sediments and marine sediments are the prevalent sediments in which petroleum is generated and occurs.

Micro fossils allow the following:

1) Paleoenvironmental analysis in which facies to be determined. These fossils occur in ocean waters of certain type and temperature and their occurence in sediments indicate the type of depositional enviroment that existed when and where they were deposited. Their presence in sediments of different compositon, can tell us that both sediments were deposited in the same depositional environment.

2) Biostratigraphy, where rock units are differenciated based on the types of fossils they contain. They allow dating of sediments. The different faunal assemblages can indicate a specific time range which allows us to accurately date a sedimentary layer relative to others. Using a number of overlapping faunal ranges can let us date a layer or depth of sediments without need to refer to the make up of the sediments themselves and create "zones" independent of the changing lithology. This information is critical to building accurate geologc models of a petroleum province to accertain where source rocks, and potential reservoir rocks may occur and their relationship to tectonic activity that may have resulted in faulting and structure formation.

Other uses include paleoclimatology which helps in determining what climate type prevailed in a depositional basin at the time of deposition. Biogeography which can yeild information on the geography that prevailed. They can also yield information on thermal maturation which tells us something of the history of the basin in which the sediments were deposited and whether the petroleum source rocks were buried long enough and deep enough to generate petroleum

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