Field workshops focused in saline geosystems
Salty systems and their tectonic evolution
Join your trip experts, Dr. John Warren and Dr. Ian Dyson, on this 12-day field workshop and experience firsthand the diversity and economic significance of saline systems and sequence analysis in Australia’s evaporite geosystems (modern and ancient).
This 12-day combined field and lecture course is a unique opportunity to delve into the diversity and geological importance of world-famous regions in saline depositional systems. You’ll experience the unique aspects of the Coorong, Marion Lake, Lake Eyre, and the Flinders Ranges, and engage in a core-based study of facies, textures, depositional devolution, and architecture. With a limited capacity of 10-15 participants, this workshop promises an intimate and enriching learning experience while exploring this unique part of the evaporite world.
We can always design a corporate trip through these world-famous sites to emphasise the geological topics and features that most interest your team.
Flinder Ranges - Diapiric breccia - Blinman diapir
Lake Eyre - Kati Thandi
Messinian halokinesis in the western Mediterranean
Field Site Objectives
Understand the depositional and diagenetic significance of evaporite, limestone and dolomite textures across all scales (from core to reservoir)
Learn to interpret mega-evaporite geometries in terms of tectonic and eustatic controls
Better appreciate implications of saline stacking and halokinetic patterns in terms of reservoir and non-reservoir distribution, their architecture, the heterogeneity and quality of reservoir in an evaporite sequence framework.
Integrate different scales of observation and interpretation from outcrop, to core, to wireline, to seismic scale.
Development and production scale modelling of facies distribution, stacking patterns, bed-scale stratigraphy, and the hierarchy of architectural elements within distributive saline depositional, halokinetic and diagenetic systems.
Possible classroom topics
Evaporite textures in a depositional and diagenetic framework
Brine hydrology and geochemistry as drivers of diagenesis
Ancient evaporites - why only partial Quaternary analogs?
Halotectonics, welds and poroperm prediction
Halotectonics, welds and poroperm prediction
Focus your workshop content
Some company clients prefer a more hands-on approach, and we can design a field workshop for you with this in mind.
With a little planning, a client field workshop can integrate examples of the company's wireline and core data to construct a number of half-day workshop sessions within the fieldcourse that can be devoted to the use and interpretation of such company supplied material. All such material provided will be "commercial-in-confidence" and only used by SaltWorks on a contracted "as-agreed" basis.
Field sites and visits
Ancient halotectonic geosystems of the Flinders Ranges (outcropping diapir controls and sediment geometries)
Salt cores from a variety of Silurian, Cambrian and Neoproterozoic evaporites (depositional and halokinetic salt textures)
World-class salt pans and bajadas of Lake Eyre and Lake Torrens (overflight)
Modern salina tepees, stromatolites and bedded subaqueous sulphates of Marion Lake region (sub-salt reservoir analog)
Halotectonics, welds and poroperm prediction
Modern lacustrine Coorong carbonates (sub-salt reservoir analog)
Dolomitic Pellet Lake, lookihg toward Southern Ocean, Salt Creek, Coorong region