12 Comments

Great post Ted. Here's something I'd like to see ChatGPT do before I start worrying about my work in drill-in fluids. At the highest level, which point I give myself credit for attaining, formation damage assessments are done to determine the amount of damage done to rock core-mostly in open hole completions. Damage mechanisms can be very elusive and the care and expertise of the person doing the analysis is definitely called upon to figure out a way forward that qualifies a fluid to drill the interval with minimal-invasion or damage. I absolutely defy Chat to perform this task. Cheers!

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Yeah I think it’s a long way (maybe never?) from that!

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Ha! Yeah that is always fun 😆

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Borrowed from medical imaging and computerized tomography (CT scan) which got some Nobel prizes. And all of crystallography essentially derived from inversions of 3D Fourier series from X-ray and electron diffraction. Reciprocal space is much tougher than real space. Just laughing at your hyperbole.

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Well no doubt those other fields are more scientifically advanced in many ways. But I think there is an important difference between the most complex spatial science and the most spatially complex science. My guess is that if you gave spatial reasoning tests to geologists, doctors, and materials scientists that geologists would be top.

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What's the point scientifically? 99% of the stuff one finds is pseudo-randomized and without much structure. That's just the nature of entropy grinding away over the years. So sure, maybe they'll be looking for isolated commercial resource reserves or some fault, but that's all applied. Nope, a mathematician researching abstract geometry and topologies would have everyone beat.

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"Geology has some of the most complex spatial problems in any field"

LOL

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It’s true!! Trying to reconstruct (4D) earth history using incomplete data (often 1D or 2D) with so many degrees of freedom and complex events … can be incredibly tough. Structural geology really requires geologists to be able to visualize 3d in their head.

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Ted, I don't think Pukite has ever sat on a drill floor when the bit hits a hard streak, and the P-rate goes from 50 m an hour to one meter an hour and the question arises, "where the hell are we?" All eyes looking at the Geo. 😉

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I don't have to. My brilliant applied physics and statistics background allowed me to write a book called Mathematical GeoEnergy which explained why crude oil is not much longer for this world ;) Peak oil baby.

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You've been hanging around with ol Hubbert. 🤣 Cheers

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I've been hanging around reality. I wrote the book after realizing how much the Earth science field lacks in science.

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