Mickael Barbier

• Ph.D
• Dr at Akkodis

A multidisciplinary approach has been applied to characterize the Madison Formation in the Sheep Mountain anticline at different scales, in order to illustrate the relationship between sedimentology, diagenesis and fracturing pattern. Sedimentary facies are organized into three types of elementary facies sequences showing different vertical evoluti...

Based on the study of the Madison Limestone at Sheep Mountain and Rattlesnake Mountain, a unique outcrop dataset including (1) facies and diagenetic analyses, (2) vertical persistence and cement stratigraphy of vein sets and (3) fluid inclusions thermometry are used to demonstrate the impact of folding and fracturing on paleo-hydrogeology. Quantifi...

Designing carbonate facies models requires the integration, correlation and conceptual interpretation of multiple geological data sets. Potential significant errors are sourced from uncertain stratigraphic correlations, speculative palaeoecological interpretations and poorly recorded palaeotopographic profiles. The present study explores a methodol...

In the study of subsurface reservoirs, permeability is a key parameter whose evaluation and extrapolation at the desired scale, such as that of the numerical model mesh, are both a necessity and a difficult task. Relating permeability measurements to the geological characteristics of the rock, at intermediate scales seldom characterized, can help u...

The Yacoraite Formation is a complex lacustrine microbialite-bearing carbonate formation whose heterogeneity is due to different sedimentary facies associations and several microbialite geobodies. The bi-variate plurigaussian geostatistical method is applied to simulate in parallel these two types of heterogeneity in a 3D reservoir-scale geological...

The hydraulic conductivity of karst medium largely varies through space and with the observation scale. Here, we investigate the petrophysical properties of carbonates from centimetric to metric scale. Several boreholes a few meters apart were cored and exhaustively characterized. Petrophysical measurements were performed on rock samples, while pac...

Carbonate reservoirs exhibit an extreme geological heterogeneity inducing a great diversity of fluids flows. Grasping the plurality of flows and the corresponding geological features require data scarcely available from subsurface hydrocarbons fields and even rarely acquired together on outcrop analogues. Among the different sites of the ALBION R&D...

In carbonate reservoirs, because of the diversity of geological processes involved in the reservoir construction, the extrapolation of properties directly from well data to reservoir model gridblocks may lead to poorly predictive reservoir properties and then production forecasts. This paper proposes a modelling workflow in which new tools from dis...

There is growing interest in geothermal energy, which is considered as an efficient energy solution to mitigate rising atmospheric CO2. Besides known high enthalpy geothermal systems, increasing attention is paid to low temperature geothermal systems, as they are suitable for local use. Although geothermal production seems to be an environmentally...

The current lithospheric structure of the Betic Cordillera results from active geodynamic system related to slab retreat slowdown in western Mediterranean. A sharp change in lithospheric thickness has been imaged beneath the Betic Cordillera, potentially resulting from a near-vertical subduction-transform-edge-propagator fault toward the surface wi...

The Granada Basin is a small (50 × 50 km) Neogene intramontane basin located in the central part of the Betic Cordillera (Spain). In the latest Tortonian, the Granada Basin desiccated and a thick salt succession formed, encompassing three halite- bearing units: the ‘Lower Halite Unit’, the ‘Intermediate Sandstone Unit’ (ISU), and the ‘Upper Halite...

The Betic Cordillera (Spain) is a tectonically active zone corresponding to the European western part of the Alpine peri Mediterranean orogenic belt. Although this is well admitted that this orogenic belt results from the Iberia-Africa plate convergence from the Mesozoic onward, its lithospheric structure and geodynamic processes explaining the for...

Understanding groundwater flow at sedimentary basin scale plays a crucial role into the prevention of environmental issues (e.g., groundwater contamination, land aridification). However assessing and constraining groundwater circulation in sedimentary basins remain a challenge in geosciences because of, among other factors, the different water orig...

Diagenesis is rarely accounted for in the standard modeling workflows for carbonate reservoirs, although it has a huge impact on both porosity and permeability. This can be explained by at least two reasons: first, it is difficult to quantify the influence of diagenetic overprints on porosity and permeability; second, the integration of the diagene...

The Betic Cordillera (Spain) is a tectonically active zone corresponding to the European western part of the Alpine peri Mediterranean orogenic belt. Several occurrences of thermal springs are known in the Betic Cordillera with moderate temperatures comprised between 23 and 50°C. The location of these thermal springs are closely related to major fa...

Carbonate rocks are usually very good carbonate reservoirs and can host giant fields, such as the Ghawar, Karachaganak or Lula fields. They can form in various depositional environments, stratigraphic and structural settings, and can be affected by many different diagenetic processes. As a result, they present very heterogeneous petroacoustic chara...

The objective of the COMPAS project was the study of an outcrop analogue of the Atlantic pre-salt carbonate reservoirs. These carbonates consist of stromatolitic and bioclastic carbonate facies which were deposited in lacustrine or shallow marine depositional environments during the Sag phase (transition from syn-rift to postrift) of the South-Atla...

The impact of compaction diagenesis on reservoir properties is addressed based on observations made on five boreholes with different burial histories of the Early Callovian “Dalle Nacrée” Formation in the Paris Basin. Petrographic analyses were carried out in order to investigate the rock-texture, pore space type and volume, micro-fabrics, and ceme...

The purpose of this study is to characterize factors controlling the nature and distribution of the diagenetic phases that gave rise to carbonate reservoirs. To do so, a pluridisciplinary approach was carried out, integrating sedimentologic and diagenetic studies on the Madison Formation (Lower Carboniferous, 357-340 My) which is a carbonate reserv...

The present work focuses on the study of the diagenetic evolution of carbonates rocks in contact with evaporites. Brine circulations are often associated with diagenetic modifications (ore deposition, dissolution, fluid escapes, etc.). The study of the mineralogical transformations occurring in sediments in contact with evaporites contributes to id...

The present study focuses on the diagenesis of a Paleozoic tight carbonate reservoir. The studied rocks are characterized by a large number of depositional origins, leading to the generation of diagenetic traps, which are hardly detectable by seismic and wireline logs. Several generations of silica replacement and cementation affected the rocks. Do...

Carbonate rocks have an intrinsic heterogeneity at multiple scales that makes difficult the estimation of porosity and permeability properties. In addition, these properties can be affected by the diagenetic processes making the simulation of carbonate reservoirs even more complex. Until now, the results of diagenetic studies in modelling workflows...

Outcrop analogues are key elements in the understanding of reservoir architecture and heterogeneities. Indeed, subsurface data often represent an extremely small fraction of the reservoir complexity. This is specifically true for carbonate reservoirs that exhibit a high degree of heterogeneity, whatever the scale of investigation. Working on subsur...

Based on the study of the Madison Limestone at Sheep Mountain and Rattlesnake Mountain, a unique outcrop dataset including (1) facies and diagenetic analyses, (2) vertical persistence and cement stratigraphy of vein sets and (3) fluid inclusions thermometry are used to demonstrate the impact of folding and fracturing on paleo-hydrogeology. Quantifi...

Les réservoirs géologiques, et plus particulièrement les réservoirs carbonatée, sont hétérogènes en termes de géométries et de nature, ce qui augmente la difficulté à les caractériser et les représenter de manière déterministe, et ce malgré les nombreuses données géologiques disponibles (carottes de forage, logs diagraphies, profils géophysiques, e...

The relationships between sedimentological facies and diagenetic properties differ depending on burial and geological history. In this paper we propose several examples where different quantitative expressions of diagenetic imprints lead to different workflows to be applied, to obtain final simulations reproducing both the sedimentary facies and th...

The aim of this paper is to propose an integrated approach to reproduce both facies and diagenetic trends in a static reservoir model based on an outcrop case study. In Wyoming (USA), the Madison Formation (Mississippian) is a thick (up to 350 m) carbonate series, outcropping in several locations of the Bighorn foreland basin. Within these series,...

The relationships between sedimentological facies and diagenetic properties differ depending on burial and geological history. In this paper we propose several examples where different quantitative expressions of diagenetic imprints lead to different workflows to be applied, to obtain final simulations reproducing both the sedimentary facies and th...

central part of the Gulf of Lions shoreline is characterized by many coastal wetlands that resulted from the interaction between a process of shoreline regularization by migrations of littoral barriers and a slow filling of the back-barrier areas by the riverine and marine inputs. Analyses of Late-Holocene deposits with a very high-resolution multi...