Mathieu Jacques Duchesne

Natural Resources Canada | NRCan · Geological Survey of Canada

This study documents two potential neotectonic features in the seismically active St. Lawrence estuary and western part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence of Quebec, Canada. Historically, the region is the locus of series of damaging earthquakes, including the 1663 M 7 earthquake, which suggests the occurrence of coseismic surface ruptures beneath the St....

Prior to the halt of oil and gas exploration on Anticosti Island in 2017, the Geological Survey of Canada had initiated five research activities related to unconventional resource exploration and development on the island. One such activity aimed to improve the seismic imaging of the Macasty Formation. This thin-layered shale reservoir is located b...

The Hudson Bay Basin is the largest intracratonic basin in North America but also the least known from a geological point of view and the only one without hydrocarbon production and reserves. The Hudson Bay Basin, in north-central Canada, is bounded by smaller satellite basins, Moose River Basin to the south and Foxe and Hudson Strait basins to the...

Within the Maritimes Basin of eastern Canada, the onshore Moncton sub-basin is one of the NE-trending second-order depocenters that recorded a complex tectonic history from Late Devonian to Late Carboniferous. Analysis of a 3D seismic volume in the McCully gas field area exemplifies the complex interplay between mainly continental sedimentation and...

Potential impacts of shale gas development on shallow aquifers has raised concerns, especially regarding groundwater contamination. The intermediate zone separating shallow aquifers from shale gas reservoirs plays a critical role in aquifer vulnerability to fluid upflow, but the assessment of such vulnerability is challenging due to the general pau...

The Maritimes Basin is an upper Paleozoic sedimentary basin centered in the Gulf of St. Lawrence (Canada). Early phases of basin formation included the development of partly connected sub-basins bounded by high-angle faults, in an overall strike-slip setting. Interpretation of reprocessed seismic reflection data indicates that a low-angle detachmen...

The Arctic is the last area with significant conventional hydrocarbon potential to be explored. A report by the United States Geological Survey indicates reserves of over 90 billion barrels of oil, 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids and 1670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (Bird et al., 2008), with a significant portion of these reserves...

In eastern Canada, the development of unconventional hydrocarbons is hampered by the perceived contamination risk to groundwater from hydraulic fracturing. Two projects studying potential hydrocarbon migration natural pathways from deep (~2 km) shale or tight sand units to shallow aquifers are ongoing in southern Quebec (St-Édouard area, St. Lawren...

The combined use of P- and S-wave seismic reflection data is appealing for providing insights into active petroleum systems because P-waves are sensitive to fluids and S-waves are not. The method presented herein relies on the simultaneous acquisition of P- and S-wave data using a vibratory source operated in the inline horizontal mode. The combine...

Modern processing methods were applied to 3400 line-kilometres of legacy seismic data from Sabine Peninsula of Melville Island in the Canadian Arctic Islands. Post-stack reprocessing improved the imaging, allowing new insight into the following issues: The northern extent of lower Paleozoic source rocks, extensional structures and rock types in the...

This study presents the first independent evaluation of the in place hydrocarbon resources for the Macasty Formation on Anticosti Island. The evaluation uses the dual porosity model of the GSC. The data consists of all public domain information as well as confidential data provided by the operators on the island. Our evaluation indicates significan...

Cette étude présente la première évaluation indépendante du potentiel en hydrocarbures pour la Formation de Macasty sur l'île d'Anticosti. L'évaluation utilise le modèle à double porosité développé par la CGC. Les données incluent celles du domaine public ainsi que des données confidentielles fournies par les opérateurs sur l'île (Hydrocarbures Ant...

Shale gas exploration in the St. Lawrence Platform of southern Quebec (eastern Canada) focussed on the Upper Ordovician Utica Shale from 2006 to 2010 during which 28 wells were drilled, 18 of which were fracked. The St. Lawrence Platform is thus considered as a pristine geological domain where potential environmental effects of fracking can be eval...

Recently acquired multibeam bathymetry data are used to investigate seafloor instability features along a 310 km-long segment of the St. Lawrence River Estuary. The analysis of this dataset indicates that submarine slides occur over a much larger area than previously recognized and that Holocene sediments are reworked by mass-transport along signif...

The combined use of compressional (P-waves) and shear-waves (S-waves) seismic reflection data is appealing for providing insights into the prospectivity of petroleum systems because P-waves are sensitive to fluids and S-waves are not. This analytical method is tested on two potential hydrocarbon indicators located in a prospective area of the St. L...

The evaluation of drilling prospects is frequently based on seismic amplitude anomalies. To decipher "true" seismic prospects from "false" ones, we used poroviscoelastic (PVE) models, as opposed to other formalisms such as acoustic, elastic, viscoelastic, and poroelastic models, that provided a solution that takes into account solid and fluid atten...

We report on a 4.1 (±0.2) km diameter and 185 m deep circular submarine structure exposed on the seabed in >40 m water depths in the northwestern Gulf of St. Lawrence (Eastern Canada) from the analysis of high-resolution multibeam bathymetric and seismic data. The presence of a circular form characterized by a central uplift and concentric rings re...

The geomorphology of the Eastern Canadian margin has been shaped by glacial processes during the Quaternary. Many studies have focused on the ice-sediment pathway through Hudson Strait to reconstruct the dynamics of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, and as a consequence, little is known on its marginal ice domes. Here we reconstruct the dynamics of two tro...

A breccia clast was dredged from the 4-km diameter underwater Corossol Crater near Sept Iles, Canada. It contains fragmented glassy droplets with a composition similar to fluorapatite, and a quartz crystal showing planar deformation features.

In the Montérégie region, east of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, high-resolution compressional (P-) and shear (S-) wave reflection sections were obtained using a vibratory source and three-component (3C) landstreamer data acquisition system during field programs carried out in 2009 and 2010. The work was part of a strategy to improve the knowledge and u...

Hydrocarbon system elements’ Hudson Bay Basin, Arctic Canada

Hydrocarbon systems - Hudson bay

New magnetic and seismic datasets offer a unique opportunity to document the geometry of the Appalachian front in a poorly studied segment of the orogen. Interpretation of high-resolution magnetic data allows, for the first time, the documentation of the contact between the autochthonous St Lawrence Platform and the Appalachians and highlights the...

Unlike the application of X-ray computed tomography (X-CT) in the industry, purpose of using X-CT data in the scientific ocean drilling expeditions varies from checking of operational data quality and screening whole-round core in terms of quality and importance in structural geology, the quantitative estimation of physical properties (e.g. porosit...

Geostatistics is extensively used to construct reservoir models from the integration of seismic and well data, invert seismic data, and less frequently for seismic processing (Michelena and Gringarten 2009). Seismic interpretations made in time can also be converted in depth by estimating velocities within each layer using geostatistical methods (H...

Geostatistics is extensively used to construct reservoir models from the integration of seismic and well data, invert seismic data, and less frequently for seismic processing (Michelena and Gringarten 2009). Seismic interpretations made in time can also be converted in depth by estimating velocities within each layer using geostatistical methods (H...

doi:10.1190/segam2012-1125.1

Among all geological CO2 storage possibilities, deep saline aquifers are of great interest due to their worldwide repartition and their important storage volume. We present a workflow using available vintage data with poor 2D seismic coverage for building a first geological and reservoir model for CO2 geological storage in the deep saline aquifers...

New geoscience data - Hudson Bay

Petroleum systems Hudson Bay Arctic Canada

Petroleum systems Hudson Bay Arctic Canada

The Anticosti Basin is a large, predominantly marine sedimentary basin centered within the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence. Poor-quality vintage seismic reflection data collected more than 25 years ago in the offshore part of the basin failed to depict its geometry. However, recently acquired multibeam bathymetry and magnetic data can be used in comb...

Correlations between physical properties and seismic reflection data are useful to determine the geological nature of seismic reflections and the lateral extent of geological strata. The difference in resolution between well logs and seismic data is a major hurdle faced by seismic interpreters when tying both data sets. In general, log data have a...

Hydrocarbon system elements, Hudson Bay

The St. Lawrence Estuary, Eastern Canada, contains a very thick (>450 m) Quaternary sedimentary sequence. The results from recently conducted geophysical surveys in conjunction with piston coring indicate that these sediments were deposited under very high sedimentation rates, sometimes as high as ~30 m/ka during the last deglaciation. Results also...

A new surficial geology map of the St. Lawrence River Estuary illustrates sediment distribution and variability in a relatively confined environment. This map is based on recently collected geophysical and geological data that provide a link between submarine landforms and sedimentary units. The strong dichotomy between the areas to the northeast a...

The Corossol Crater is a complex crater ~4 km in diameter with a central uplift, a prominent moat, and multiple, low-relief ridges. The minimum age is ~13 ka. The impact origin is confirmed by a sample of suevite.

Combining time–amplitude and time–frequency information from seismic reflection data sets of different resolutions allows the analysis of anomalous reflections from very-shallow to great subsurface depths. Thus, it can enhance the imaging of subsurface features which have a frequency-dependent reflectivity such as gas. Analysing seismic data of dif...

Multibeam bathymetry data collected in Hudson Bay in 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2010 during an ArcticNet cruises onboard the CCGS Amundsen show two sectors characterized by a high density of pockmarks and peculiar ring structures. The first sector is situated in northern Hudson Bay close to Mansel Island and is characterised by a ± 2 km long depression i...

The Paleozoic-Mesozoic Hudson Platform is the least studied sedimentary basin in Canada despite the fact that it is one of the largest sedimentary accumulations in North America. Of all these basins, the Hudson Bay Basin is the only basin completely encircled by the old Precambrian craton (Fig. 1) and the mechanism(s?) responsible for its formation...

The geometry of estuarine and/or incised-valley basins and their protected character compared with open sea basins are favourable for the preservation of sedimentary successions. The Lower St. Lawrence Estuary Basin (LSLEB, eastern Canada) is characterized by a thick (>400 m in certain areas) Quaternary succession. High- and very high-resolution se...

The 15-km-long Matane pockmark train belongs to a series of NNE-striking alignments of pockmarks mapped on the seafloor of the St. Lawrence Estuary. It includes 109 pockmarks that show a complete transition from well-defined, relatively deep (up to 8.6m), crater-like depressions to subtle, partly buried morphological features, suggesting that pockm...

Nearly 2000 pockmarks with diameters ranging from a few tens of meters up to 700 m are present on the seafloor of the St. Lawrence Estuary in eastern Canada. Coring of some pockmarks resulted in the recovery of various-sized and shaped carbonate concretions in a predominantly silty mud matrix. Petrographic and geochemical data on four authigenic ca...

Résumé Des levés régionaux de géologie marine effectués sur trois ans dans l’estuaire du Saint-Laurent permettent pour la première fois de caractériser en détail le relief sous-marin entre l’Ile aux Coudres et Pointe-des-Monts, Québec Canada. Les levés de bathymétrie multifaisceaux, couplés à des levés géophysiques à haute résolution (sismique et s...

The Hudson Platform covers an area of 600,000 km2 and represents one of the largest Paleozoic sedimentary basins in Canada. The Hudson Platform contains the large Hudson Bay Basin and smaller Moose River Basin. The Hudson Bay and Moose River basins are surrounded and underlain by Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks of the Canadian Shield. The...

Summary Over 1900 pockmarks have been identified on the St. Lawrence Estuary sea floor. The location of these pockmarks over a prospective hydrocarbon domain (Paleozoic St. Lawrence Platform), their spatial distribution with linear pockmark trains parallel to bedrock features, their geophysical signature including seismic chimneys that root into th...

Three years of regional marine geology surveys in the St. Lawrence Estuary allow for the first time the detailed characterization of the seabed topography between Ile aux Coudres and Pointe-des-Monts, Québec, Canada. Multibeam bathymetric surveys complemented with high resolution geophysical surveys (seismic and side-scan sonar) and seabed sampling...

A recently acquired ∼8 m-long sediment core along with high-resolution seismic reflection and subbottom profiler sections allowed the identification, characterization and dating of a widespread seismic unit extending from the head of the Laurentian Channel (Lower St. Lawrence Estuary) to Honguedo Strait (Gulf of St. Lawrence), Eastern Canada. This...

A recently acquired 8-m long sediment core along with high-resolution seismic-reflection and sub-bottom profiler sections allowed the identification, characterization and dating of a widespread seismic unit extending from the head of the Laurentian Channel (Lower St. Lawrence Estuary) to Honguedo Strait (Gulf of St. Lawrence), Eastern Canada. This...

Medical Computed Tomography scanners permit to rapidly obtain qualitative and quantitative information on objects in a non-destructive manner in both longitudinal and transversal directions. CT-scan scales used to express attenuation on the images are different for longitudinal (topograms) and transversal (tomograms) views, restraining the compleme...

The seabed of the St. Lawrence Estuary is characterized by many fluid releasing features. On multibeam bathymetric images these features correspond to crater-like depression (pockmarks) predominantly found on the northwestern shoulder of the ∼300m deep Laurentian Channel, as well as on the channel floor. Aligned pockmarks, which define segments up...

Recently, 55 high-resolution seismic sections were collected by the Geological Survey of Canada to map the Quaternary sedimentary succession over an area of 7600 km2 in the St. Lawrence Estuary (eastern Canada). To better understand the geometrical relationships between these various units and to document the impact of the bedrock topography on the...