Research Portal

Petroleum Geoscience » Source Rock & Depositional Environment

Microbial Genomics for De-Risking Offshore Oil and Gas Exploration in Nova Scotia

April 2016 – March 2021

The purpose of this $6.5M project is to develop, validate and deploy different genomics-based bioassay tools for offshore prospecting on the Scotian Slope.

Renewable Energy » Marine Life

Real-Time Detection of Marine Mammals in High Flow Environments

May 2019 – February 2021

The project research goal is to design and test an innovative acoustic sensor system that will feature a wireless magneto-inductive (MI) communications link – to alert users in real time of the presence and location of marine mammals in high noise tidal environments.  The research entails a field

Petroleum Geoscience » Source Rock & Depositional Environment

Aspy Well Geochemistry

December 2019 – September 2020

This project determines if indications of migrated hydrocarbons or potential source rocks were encountered during the 2018 drilling of BP’s deep-water well Aspy D-11 well.

Petroleum Geoscience » Source Rock & Depositional Environment

Scotian Shelf Oils Geochemistry

December 2019 – September 2020

Twenty-five significant hydrocarbon discoveries have been made on the Scotian Shelf in shallow water. Additionally, staining is observed in many wells and over a large geographical area.

Petroleum Geoscience » Source Rock & Depositional Environment

Sequence stratigraphy, titania diagenesis and relationship to petroleum systems modeling

October 2018 – July 2020

This project examines different forms of titania (TiO2) minerals to confirm the relationship between late diagenetic titania (i.e., titania minerals transformed under the heat and pressure of sedimentary processes) and hydrocarbon migration and thus assess the use of titania polymorphs as “pathfi

Petroleum Geoscience » Source Rock & Depositional Environment

Predictive Modeling of Sandstone Reservoir Distribution in the SW Scotian Basin

March 2018 – April 2020

The SW Scotian Basin is considered an under-explored passive margin sedimentary basin, however, it is also the most probable location to find oil on the Scotian Margin.

Renewable Energy » Marine Life

Development of Acoustic Doppler Aquatic Animal Monitoring (ADAAM) for application to marine life movement in high-energy tidal channels

March 2018 – February 2020

Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs) are a standard tool used for measuring ocean currents.

Renewable Energy » Marine Life

Testing of 360-Degree Imaging Technologies for Improved Animal Detection around Tidal Energy Installations

May 2019 – February 2020

The research goal was to conduct a field study to test the performance of a new imaging camera system mounted on a floating tidal platform deployed in Grand Passage, Bay of Fundy.  Field testing featured testing of different camera mount locations on the platform in order to optimize field-of-vie

Petroleum Geoscience » Source Rock & Depositional Environment

Piston Coring Geochemistry Program

January 2015 – January 2020

Confirming the presence of hydrocarbons from an oil-prone Jurassic age source rock would encourage exploration in the deep water portion of Nova Scotia’s offshore.

Petroleum Geoscience » Source Rock & Depositional Environment

Seismic Reconstruction and Petroleum Systems Modeling of the Nova Scotia-Morocco Conjugate Margin

April – December 2019

Seismic Reconstruction

The Seismic Reconstruction project is a stand-alone element of the Conjugate Margin Program undertaken by the consulting firm Beicip Franlab. A number of subprojects and data streams are inputs to this project.