Between and beyond data: How analogue field experience informs the interpretation of remote data sources in petroleum reservoir geology

Abstract

This paper explores how experience from field trips to geological analogues informs the interpretation of remote data sources in petroleum reservoir geology. It is based on observations of a group of petroleum geologists on a field trip to an analogue field and descriptions of the typical office work of such professionals in the same company. Special attention is given to representational artefacts and data types employed in the different settings. Field trips are experiences in which the geologists develop skills in handling the relationship between geological and physical structures experienced in the field and conventional representations of them. When trying to make sense of the offshore reservoirs deep beneath the seabed, they have to make do with fragmentary data from remote sensor arrangements. When creating integrated ideas of a reservoir based on sparse remote data sources, petroleum geologists draw analogies to the patterns observed in the field and draw from the skills developed when performing similar extrapolations in the field.