Sedimentary Process Modeling: From Academia to Industry

Abstract

Sedimentary process modeling evolved from an academic exercise to practical applications from the 1970’s to this day. The SEDSIM model, developed at Stanford in the 1980’s under the direction of John Harbaugh, is an example of a model that underwent an early development in academia, and later was applied in industry, where it multiplied into several versions. It differed from other 3-D sedimentary models of that time in that it attempted to model strictly physical processes for extremely long periods of time. It initially was an ambitious project, necessitating more computer power than was available, despite substantial simplifications in the mathematical representation of the physical processes. Through the vision of John Harbaugh, the original model was completed just when computer power reached the model’s computational requirements for practical applications. The availability of three-dimensional animated computer graphics complemented SEDSIM’s numerical techniques to make it a useful tool for hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation, as is illustrated by two application examples presented in this paper. Future developments should be geared toward integration with other models, automatic inversion, integration with geostatistical methods, and better representing the nonlinear dynamics of flow and sedimentation.