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Staff profile

Overview

Dimitrios Charlaftis

Biography

2017 - Present: PhD in Geological Sciences, Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University, UK.

2015 - 2016: MSc in Petroleum Reservoir Geoscience (Distinction), Department of Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences, University of Liverpool, UK. 

2005 - 2015: BSc in Geology, School of Sciences, Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.

Conference Contributions

Charlaftis, D., Worden, R.H., Young, M., Ward, K. (2016), Reservoir delineation using novel surface gas microseepage techniques, PETEX 2016, London, UK, Poster presentation. 

PhD Research Overview

"Assessing High-Pressure and High-Temperature sandstone reservoir quality: identifying the reality"

Funding: Durham Doctoral Studentship & BP

Quartz cementation is one of the main porosity-reduction mechanisms in siliciclastic sandstone reservoirs. Detrital grain coatings, particularly chlorite, illite, mixed layer smectite/chlorite clays and microquartz frequently inhibit quartz formation and thereby preserve reservoir quality to greater burial depths than is normally predicted. Laboratory experiments have already clearly identified the role played by high temperatures (>100°C) in controlling authigenic clay coatings on detrital quartz grains. However, there has been little work undertaken to investigate how high pressure influences the development of clay coatings and determine the amounts of quartz cementation in sandstone reservoirs.

As part of my research I am conducting a series of hydrothermal reactor experiments to test the fundamental premises that: i) clay coats inhibit quartz cement and evaluate the mechanisms by which this inhibition occurs; ii) high pressure (Low-VES) can significantly reduce the amount of quartz cementation and maintain enhanced porosity at depth and; iii) grain coatings and their textures vary with coat type and may provide a secondary mechanism of inhibitory effectiveness. These experiments are undertaken on reservoir sandstones from the North Sea and using laboratory prepared silica, and a variety of reactive solutions and clay grain coat mixtures.

Research Groups
  • Sedimentology
Research Interests
  • Petroleum Geology
  • Sedimentology
  • Diagenesis
  • Reservoir quality prediction
Teaching Responsibilities

Postgraduate demonstrator on the following undergraduate modules:

  • Principles of Earth Sciences
  • Understanding of Earth sciences
  • Sedimentary Environments

Publications

Journal Article