Borehole Image Specialists is a small company of geologists with deep experience in subsurface investigations. We are subject matter experts in sedimentary basin architecture, open-hole logging operations, borehole image log acquisition, mineral diagenesis, subsurface fluid flow, fault and fracture system dynamics and present-day stress geomechanics. We offer comprehensive open hole and borehole image log processing, analysis and interpretation.

Borehole images provide unparalleled visual resolution (0.2") of reservoir features that cannot be seen by open-hole logs or seismic sections. These features include sedimentary structures, bedding contacts, folds, fractures and faults. Software to is able to map the spatial geometry of these features with depth, providing information almost equivalent to cored rock. Borehole imaging has evolved from rudimentary 3-armed dipmeter tools to highly sophisticated instruments that record a large, high-resolution dataset. Recent developments include improvements in acquiring images in horizontal wells, through oil-based circulation fluid and even while drilling. Borehole image acquisition provides a means of mapping planar features and these data can render information about sediment transport direction, paleoslope orientation, and post-depositional deformation. Clues from image color and texture permit determination of fracture types (open aperture, mineralized, partially-mineralized or closed); spatial variation in fracture types, abundances and geometries are often controlled by structural or lithologic changes. Rock matrix and pore texture (from borehole images) combined with composition (from open-hole logs) can be used to map image facies – proxies for the sedimentary facies that can only be known from core. Image facies calibrated to core can be used to map the degree of bioturbation vs. laminated material across a field, to characterize debris flows or to visualize secondary porosity or brecciation in a horizon targeted for salt water disposal. An important feature of borehole images is identification of present-day stress indicators (borehole breakouts and drilling-induced tensile fractures), crucial characteristics for stimulation design. Enhanced applications of borehole image data include calibrating quantitative stress calculations for reservoir geomechanics and borehole stability, predicting the geometry of critically-stressed fractures to mitigate induced seismicity, indicating degree of anisotropy to fine-tune stimulation design, and mapping hydraulic stimulation fractures from nearby wells. Seeing is believing!