Getech is pleased to report the publication of two papers entitled “Reconstructing environmental signals across the Permian-Triassic boundary in the SE Germanic basin: Paleodrainage modelling and quantification of sediment flux” and “Reconstructing environmental signals across the Permian-Triassic boundary in the SE Germanic Basin: A Quantitative Provenance Analysis (QPA) approach” in the November 2021 issue of ‘Global and Planetary Change’.
The papers are authored by researchers at the Geozentrum Nordbayern, and Getech Chief Geoscientist Bill Heins. The Geozentrum Nordbayern is a research institution in the Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany.
The research marks a significant step in our ability to describe and quantify ancient sediment delivery systems. Based on Getech’s Globe paleoenvironmental reconstructions, the studies touch on many aspects important to energy systems of the future:
- Subsurface fluid flow – energy systems of the future will still rely on subsurface fluid flow, including storing and retrieving hydrogen, sequestering carbon, and exchanging aquifer heat. As Meike Janßen, another Geozentrum Nordbayern colleague, explained recently, the porosity and permeability of rocks depend on the way pre-depositional geologic history controls sediment texture and mineralogy, which in-turn affects potential post-depositional diagenetic pathways. Today’s reservoir quality can be predicted from the geologic history documented by Globe.
- Geothermal – the wells investigated in this study were originally drilled for geothermal energy research; geothermal exploration and development continues in the same location today. The geologic context of the geothermal system highlighted by these papers, and documented by Globe, is just one factor in a broad spectrum of context that must be considered, as outlined by Getech’s Heat Seeker®
- Copper – the climatic evolution from the Rotliegend to Zechstein intervals in these wells marks a global transition critical for both the deposition of the nearby Kupfershchiefer copper deposits and for prospectivity of Permian sedimentary copper deposits worldwide, which become more important as electrification advances. The geologic history documented by Globe can be used to explore for copper today.
The papers also mark the most comprehensive public description to date of the Globe methodology, drawing on 30 Getech authored or co-authored peer-reviewed studies from 2004 to 2019.
Globe is a comprehensive knowledge base that documents Earth’s current structural, crustal architecture, and plate tectonic state, and summarizes tectonic, paleogeographic, environmental, climatic, and sedimentary evolution over the last 400 million years to give explorers insight into the geologic processes responsible for the distribution of resources today.
If you’d like to find out more about Getech and how our geoscience and geospatial expertise can help you meet your Energy Transition goals, please get in touch.
Posted by Bill Heins, Chief Geoscientist.
