Applied Hydrodynamics in Petroleum Exploration

Book excerpt: It has for some time been the author's opinion that the need exists for a complete, self-contained volume on hydrodynamics addressed to and written in an idiom for geologists and geophysicists actively engaged in the search for hydrocarbons. This book is offered as my attempt to satisfy this need. Explorationists traditionally concern themselves with four basic aspects of oil and gas occurrence, since these constitute the necessary con ditions enhancing the likelihood of subsurface hydrocarbon accumula tions. They are: Trap, Reservoir, Source, and the Fluids themselves. His torically, great attention has been paid to traps and reservoirs, and much pertinent literature on structure, stratigraphy and lithology is available. With respect to sources, an increasing body of literature is becoming avail able in the form of articles, books and research reports in the areas of geochemistry and mineralogy. It is to the largely ignored fourth aspect, the fluids, that this book is directed. In its formulation I have drawn from numerous sources: college physics texts ("hydrodynamics is one of the most difficult subjects in physics"), personal notes from a rigorous two-week course presented by M. K. Hub bert (who literally fathered the discipline), journal articles (some strong and others weak in their treatment of the subject), discussions with expe rienced exploration geologists (some of whom have successfully utilized these procedures and others who were not so sure), and experience gained as well as mistakes made in the course of my own personal oil and gas exploration activities.