University of Pittsburgh

Design and Construction of a Geodatabase Relevant to CO2 Sequestration and Risk Assessment

William Harbert

Concept

Build a geodatabase relevant to risk assessment related to CO2 sequestration activities.

Application & Benefits

  • CO2 sequestration
  • Geographical information systems
  • Geohazards

Technical Approach

The Department of Geology and Planetary Science has successfully collaborated with the Water and Energy Team at the Pittsburgh National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL)/Department of Energy (DOE) campus on projects related to GIS-based analysis of environment geophysics. At the University of Pittsburgh two students have already constructed a 2-plus-gigabyte database of the SACROC Oil Field region, which has been shared with the Southwest Regional Partnership. This work will continue adding subsurface, reflection seismic, well lithology, wire-line log, lithology, rock-physics properties, alteration zones, stress, fault geometry, and other information to the database. We will work closely with workers at NETL/DOE and other funded workers in this topic area, as well as those leading the risk-assessment work for the Southwest Regional partnership on this project.

Collaborations

William Harbert (University of Pittsburgh); Grant Bromhel (NETL, Morgantown); Mark  Holtz (Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas); David Wildman (NETL, Pittsburgh); Jim Sams (NETL, Pittsburgh); Richard Hammack (NETL, Pittsburgh); Garret Velovski (NETL, Pittsburgh).

Contact

William Harbert
University of Pittsburgh
Department of Geology and Planetary Science
harbert@pitt.edu