Integrated Geology of Unconventionals: The Case of the Vaca Muerta Play, Argentina [AAPG Memoirs, 121]

viii, 554 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), color maps ; 29 cm. Memoir 121's 20 chapters offer a holistic view of methods, datasets, challenges, and business contexts that entertain the mindset of professionals studying, exploring, and producing unconventional plays. The Memoir presents a chapter on each geological discipline involved in unconventional exploration, and provides five case studies integrating all disciplines while describing the workflow to obtain production. All content has been peer reviewed by professionals and academics working in the basin and by thought leaders of each discipline. The large, high-quality dataset discloses the results of advanced research completed in the past decade in the Vaca Muerta play, the first unconventional self-sourced play outside of North America to have been thoroughly studied, tested with the latest technologies, and put in production with satisfactory commercial results. These achievements derive from the "coopetition" work methodology applied by a multidisciplinary, international group of geologists from different companies and institutions. Coopetition is a new form of scientific and technical communication that consists of open and free cooperation among players within an environment of sensitive technological and commercial competition. It requires passion for science, teamwork attitude, and work ethic, and the ultimate goal of this Memoir is to contribute to the comprehension of unconventional plays by sharing the rich outcomes of our "socio-scientific" experiment of coopetition. Contents: The first economical unconventional play outside North America: context, history, and "coopetition" -- An exceptional tectonic setting along the Andean Continental Margin -- Statigraphic context: cyclostatigraphy, magnetostratigraphy, and seismic stratigraphy -- Relevant marine paleobiological markers of the Vaca Muerta formation -- Stuctural geology: tectonic history, macrostructures, regional fault map, fault systems, second-order structures, and impact of the inheritance -- Basin configuration during the Vaca Muerta times -- Sequence stratigraphy and the three-dimensional distribution of organic-rich units -- Sedimentology, depositional model, and implications for reservoir quality -- Seismic geomorphology, depositional elements, and clinoform sedimentary processes: impact on unconventional reservoir prediction -- Grain association, petrography, and lithofacies -- Organic geochemical patterns of the Vaca Muerta formation -- Reservoir properties: mineralogy, porosity, and fluid types -- Geomechanics: pressure, stress field, and hydraulic fractures -- Natural fractures: from core and outcrop observations to subsurface models -- Full development phase of the Loma Compana Block: black oil to gas and condensate windows -- De-risking the Sierras Blancas and Cruz de Lorena Blocks, black-oil window -- Pilot phase of the Aguada Federal Block, black-oil window -- Pilot phase of the Aguada Pichana Este Block, gas window -- "Factory mode" development of Fortín de Piedra Block, gas window -- Oil production from a sill complex within the Vaca Muerta formation.…