ADR is a patented technology developed by Edinburgh based Adrok Ltd. Paetoro's involvement is as an independent reviewer. A wealth of further material on the tool including references, case studies, and ongoing development is on Adrok's website www.adrokgroup.com
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Finding Petroleum 2019: Atomic Dielectric Resonance (ADR): Lighting a way through the subsurface
The presentation is available here
PETEX 2018: Onshore UK detection of subsurface geology to metre scale resolution and km scale depth, without drilling or seismic (G. Stove and D.Waters)
Click on links @ right for poster material
PAETORO has been involved as an independent reviewer of Adrok's technology. Our view is that this isn't the answer to everything, and has an issue or two still to resolve, but it is seeing real geologically driven responses to the subsurface and is another useful weapon in an onshore de-risking arsenal.
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ADR is a very different electromagnetic technique which can discern dielectric contrasts in the subsurface to km-scale depths and m-scale resolution, from surface remote sensing. It doesn't see everything - what subsurface technique does, but porosity, HC's and some lithological contrasts are evident. It is still in development - but already it provides a valuable cheaper de-risking prelude to onshore seismic and drilling. All this with a non-invasive back-pack portable tool that can reach urban or rough terrains that seismic can't. Download the abstract pdf here. Download the poster pdf here. Download a text of the poster presentation here. Download a short history of ADR here |
RELEVANT BLOGS:
THE 60 SECOND SNAPSHOT
BASICS
VERSATILITY
PREDICTION
FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
BASICS
- This is a new and different electromagnetic technology
- It’s different to other types of EM like CSEM and GPR
- It sees with m-scale resolution to depths currently reaching 3km
- It’s more like LIDAR, but using radio and microwave beams
- It recognises contrasts in the relative permittivity or dielectric constant
- Water, minerals, and hydrocarbons have very different dielectric constants
- Not every geological change has those contrasts, but some key ones do
- The scanner is still in development, but has been applied in hydrogeology, geothermal, mineral and hydrocarbon E&P settings already with measured success, including here onshore UK
VERSATILITY
- It’s back-pack portable and can go anywhere you can walk
- It operates from the surface and doesn’t need drilling or seismic
- That said any historical calibration from those things can be integrated, as can calibration from lab analyses of rock samples
- Field studies are over in a matter of weeks
- Processing takes longer – measured in months depending on size of project
- It doesn’t totally eliminate the need for drilling and seismic, but it does de-risk and helps focus cost-efficient use of any heavier investments to the best sites
PREDICTION
- Electromagnetic noise and non-uniqueness are the enemy, making prediction hard sometimes
- But repeating measurements thousands of times reduces noise
- Drawing on all the elements of energy, frequency, and phase response, and all the calibration data available reduces uniqueness issues
- Creating an ADR “lithostratigraphic genome” template from calibration wells, allows us to place new sites in a lithostratigraphic context
- This helps frame prediction of hydrocarbon responses
- Results from the Weald Basin show detection of porous lithologies and hydrocarbons
FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
- More of the same - building the global data set and improving techniques
- Particularly well suited to machine learning analytics
- Mineral, geothermal, hydrogeological, and hydrocarbon applications
- Downhole versions to understand distal vs proximal applications, and to assist modelling and calibration
- Growth expected in urban & industrial geothermal district heating applications
- Perhaps can give additional assurances with monitoring of subsurface radioactive waste