From structural styles to an internally consistent evolution story — hands-on, on-site.
Structural geology underpins almost every subsurface decision — where fluids are trapped, how reservoirs are compartmentalised, whether a fault seals or leaks, and how a structure evolved through time. This course gives your team a rigorous, practical command of structural interpretation, from recognising structural styles to building an internally consistent structural evolution story.
The training moves from outcrop to seismic scale and across the principal tectonic regimes — extensional, compressional, strike-slip, inversion and salt-affected settings — always connecting geometry and kinematics to the questions that matter for exploration and development: trap definition, fault behaviour, fracture distribution and reservoir performance. Short lectures are interspersed throughout with hands-on exercises on real seismic sections, well data, maps and cross-sections, so participants build interpretation skills rather than just absorb concepts. Because the course is delivered on-site, exercises and case studies can be adapted to your organisation's own datasets and plays.
Instruction is led by practising structural geologists whose research spans salt tectonics, analogue and numerical modelling and field-based structural analysis, combined with industry experience of applying these methods to subsurface problems.
Exploration and development geoscientists — geologists, geophysicists and engineers — who want to strengthen their structural interpretation skills. It suits early-career staff and new hires who need a solid foundation, non-specialists working in structurally complex areas, and experienced interpreters who want a modern refresher or are moving into an unfamiliar tectonic regime.
A general geoscience background. Familiarity with basic seismic interpretation and subsurface data is helpful but not required; the course builds the necessary structural framework from first principles. Exercises are worked by hand and on provided datasets — no specialist software is required, though the techniques translate directly to any structural modelling package your team uses.
Why structural geology matters in exploration, appraisal and development; the role of the structural geologist and of a structural model in de-risking the subsurface; the principles, tools and data used in structural interpretation and how surface, field, seismic, well and satellite data are integrated.
Folds, faults and fractures — geometry, classification and mechanics; fault rocks and fault architecture; the kinematic evolution of structures; variability in the timing and spatial distribution of deformation; recognising structural styles from seismic to sub-seismic scale.
Rift and passive-margin architecture; planar and listric fault geometries; growth strata and syn-rift/post-rift sequences; recognition on seismic and in the field; characteristic structural traps in extensional settings.
Fold-and-thrust belts and orogenic systems; thin- vs. thick-skinned deformation; fault-related folding (fault-bend, fault-propagation and detachment folds); thrust sequences and growth geometries; characteristic traps in contractional terranes.
Transpression and transtension; flower structures, pull-apart basins, pop-ups, releasing and restraining bends; fault-zone architecture and terminations; recognising strike-slip systems on maps, seismic and imagery; associated structural traps.
Positive and negative inversion and the mechanics of fault reactivation; multiply-deformed and multi-rift basins; recognising inheritance and overprinting; an introduction to salt-affected settings and their structural styles (covered in depth in the dedicated salt tectonics course); characteristic traps in complex terranes.
Using surface analogues and physical (analogue) models to constrain interpretation; section balancing, restoration and forward modelling; testing admissibility and viability; assembling the observations into a single, internally consistent structural evolution story and documenting it defensibly.
Trap integrity and fault-seal analysis (shale gouge ratio, shale smear, Allen diagrams); sealing vs. leaking faults; fracture networks and their controls; fluid migration pathways; the impact of structure on reservoir compartmentalisation and performance.
Participants bring the full toolkit together on an integrated dataset — ideally your organisation's own maps, seismic and wells — to interpret the structure, test and validate it, reconstruct its evolution, and produce a concise, well-documented structural interpretation.
By the end of the course, participants will be able to: recognise structural families and styles and the importance of structure in subsurface exploration; analyse structures across the principal tectonic settings; predict, validate and document a structural evolution; identify and assess faults as conduits or traps; build an internally consistent structural interpretation from integrated data; and communicate their interpretations clearly in reports and reviews.
Instructor-led delivery on-site; all course exercises and worked datasets (seismic sections, maps, well data and cross-sections); a course workbook participants keep. The course can be weighted towards a particular tectonic regime, play type or aspect of analysis on request, and optional follow-up support or a tailored interpretation-review add-on is available.
Travel and accommodation for the instructor (charged at cost or by arrangement); participant laptops and any specialist structural modelling software your team wishes to use during exercises.