Modern seismic data have become an essential toolkit for studying carbonate platforms and reservoirs in impressive detail. Whilst driven primarily by oil and gas exploration and development, data sharing and collaboration are delivering fundamental geological knowledge on carbonate systems, revealing platform geomorphologies and how their evolution on millennial time scales, as well as kilometric length scales, was forced by long-term eustatic, oceanographic or tectonic factors. Quantitative interrogation of modern seismic attributes in carbonate reservoirs permits flow units and barriers arising from depositional and diagenetic processes to be imaged and extrapolated between wells. This volume reviews the variety of carbonate platform and reservoir characteristics that can be interpreted from modern seismic data, illustrating the benefits of creative interaction between geophysical and carbonate geological experts at all stages of a seismic campaign. Papers cover carbonate exploration, including the uniquely challenging South Atlantic pre-salt reservoirs, seismic modelling of carbonates, and seismic indicators of fluid flow and diagenesis.

Introducing the physical basis, mathematical implementation, and geologic expression of modern volumetric attributes including coherence, dip/azimuth, curvature, amplitude gradients, seismic textures, and spectral decomposition, the authors demonstrate the importance of effective colour display and sensitivity to seismic acquisition and processing.

In this volume, the geologic framework is established with review papers by experts in carbonate generation, rock properties, sequence and seismic stratigraphy, and structural deformation. Then seismic expression of carbonate terranes is explored in case studies showing the importance of integrating seismic and petrophysical control with geologic models.

An accessible resource, covering the fundamentals of carbonate reservoir engineering Includes discussions on how, where and why carbonate are formed, plus reviews of basic sedimentological and stratigraphic principles to explain carbonate platform characteristics and stratigraphic relationships Offers a new, genetic classification of carbonate porosity that is especially useful in predicting spatial distribution of pore networks.

F. Jerry Lucia, working in America’s main oil-rich state, has produced a work that goes after one of the holy grails of oil prospecting. One main target in petroleum recovery is the description of the three-dimensional distribution of petrophysical properties on the interwell scale in carbonate reservoirs. Doing so would improve performance predictions by means of fluid-flow computer simulations. Lucia’s book focuses on the improvement of geological, petrophysical, and geostatistical methods, describes the basic petrophysical properties, important geology parameters, and rock fabrics from cores, and discusses their spatial distribution. A closing chapter deals with reservoir models as an input into flow simulators.

In August of 2015 the first Mountjoy Carbonate Conference, co-hosted by the Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM) and Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists (CSPG), took place in Banff, Alberta. As the approaches to characterization and modeling of carbonate reservoirs are undergoing rapid changes, this was the theme of the meeting. This Special Publication, following the inaugural meeting, contains nine state-of-the art papers relating to the (1) characterization of carbonates and advances in analytical methods, (2) controls on carbonate reservoir quality and recovery factors, and (3) reservoir distribution, the modeling of dolostone geobodies, and reservoir prediction. The Introduction includes an overview of Eric Mountjoy's career and his many contributions to the science. The contents of this Special Publication should be useful to those engaged in the characterization and modeling of carbonate reservoirs, including unconventional carbonate reservoirs, and is highly recommended as one of the most impactful recent publications for those working in this area of sedimentary science.