Marie Neubauer

PhD student - Geo

Biography

Marie Neubauer graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Exploration Geoscience) majoring in Geophysics in 2002, from The University of Adelaide. In 2003, Marie completed her Honours degree in Petroleum Geology and Geophysics at the Australian School of Petroleum. Her project, sponsored by SANTOS, was entitled 'The feasibility of time-lapse seismic methods in monitoring CO2 injection in the Fly Lake Field, Cooper Basin'. Marie commenced her PhD on the Australasian Stress Map project in April 2004 and will be investigating the in-situ stress tensor in the Carnarvon Basin, Australia. Marie is also a student member of PESA and the AAPG.

Work Experience

• External internship with Santos in 2004
• Vacation work with PIRSA 2002-2003 and 2003-2004
• Consulting work for JRS Petroleum Research in 2006 and 2007

PhD Research Project

The Contemporary in situ stress field of the Carnarvon Basin, North West Shelf

Supervisor: Professor Richard Hillis

Co-supervisor: Dr Scott Reynolds, Dr Rosalind King

Project support: Partly by Santos, Apache, Woodside, Geoscience Australia and ChevronTexaco

Scholarship support: ARC and the University of Adelaide

Technical support: ARC Discovery Grant

Project Description

Over the past 15 years significant advances have occurred in the understanding of the in situ stress field in sedimentary basins as a result of borehole imaging tools being commonly run in petroleum wells. Petroleum-based data provides vital information on the in situ stress field for a range of issues relevant to the petroleum industry, such as wellbore stability, fault seal integrity, reservoir flooding, and hydraulic fracture stimulation. On the larger scale petroleum-based stress data provides valuable neotectonic information over a depth range of 1 to 4 km, which compliments stress information obtained from deeper earthquake and shallower engineering data.

This project will use petroleum-based data to determine the in situ stress field of the Carnarvon Basin, North West Shelf, Australia. In particular this project will involve the analysis of high quality image log data for the Carnarvon Basin. The Carnarvon Basin, on Australia's western margin, is located considerable distance from an active plate boundary. A significant amount of exploration has occurred in the Carnarvon Basin in recent years, which has provided an extensive dataset from which a detailed analysis of the in situ stress field can be undertaken.

Determining the full stress tensor will be conducted on a field-by-field basis where the appropriate data is available. The full stress tensor will then be applied to a range of petroleum related issues such as those mentioned previously.

Another focus of this project will be to determine the possible source of any local stress variations within the Carnarvon Basin. Present stress data in the Carnarvon Basin indicates a fairly consistent regional east-west maximum horizontal stress orientation. However, a number of areas appear to have a more local north-south maximum horizontal stress orientation. The source and extend of the variation in maximum horizontal stress orientation has not been determined due to the lack of data. It is hoped this project, with the use of additional data, will provide further insight into this problem.

Publications

Honours Thesis:

• The feasibility of time-lapse seismic methods in monitoring CO 2 injection in the Fly Lake Field, Cooper Basin'