Reservoir Geomechanics Stanford Online

Syllabus
Feb. 10 – April 5, 2020
Professor Mark Zoback
TA Shaochuan Xu
scxu@stanford.edu

This course has been taught to Stanford student for a number of years and was filmed in
2014. It was first available as a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in the spring of 2014.
To date, over 10,000 people have completed the course. In 2020, the course is being made
available via edX platform (www.edx.org) for the first time.

Two lectures will be released each week. Participants are free to watch the lectures at
any convenient time as long as the homework assignments are completed on time. Those who
correctly complete 70% of the 8 homework assignments will receive a statement of
accomplishment if they register for a Verified . The 8 homework assignments are due on the
day indicated at 08:00 AM UTC time, which is 12:00 AM (midnight) California time. There is a
grace period allowing assignments to be handed in 24 hours after the due date.

Because there are thousands of participants in the course, it is not feasible for us to
answer questions or handle individual requests by email. We try to address the most common
and pressing issues through the edX online discussion forum. We have been encouraged by
how students help each other via the discussion forum, and we urge you to both ask and
contribute to the discussions.

The course text is Reservoir Geomechanics, by Professor Mark Zoback, published by

Cambridge University Press. It is available from:
Cambridge University Press: https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/earth-and-
environmental-science/applied-geoscience-petroleum-and-mining-geoscience/reservoir-
geomechanics?format=PB

Amazon (Print or Kindle edition): https://www.amazon.com/Reservoir-Geomechanics-Mark-D-

Zoback/dp/0521146194/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550273117&sr=8-
1&keywords=reservoir+geomechanics

Week 1 Starting (Feb 10)

Unit 1 – Course Overview

Unit 2 – (Ch. 1) The Tectonic Stress Field

HW1 Assigned, Calculating Overburden Stress

Week 2 (Feb 17)
Unit 3 – (Ch. 2) Pore Pressure at Depth

Unit 4 – (Ch. 3) Basic Constitutive Laws

HW2 Assigned, Estimating the Onset of Overpressure

Week 3 (Feb 24)

Unit 5 – (Ch. 4) Rock Strength

Unit 6 – (Ch. 5) Fault Friction and Crustal Strength

HW1 Due; HW3 Assigned, Estimating Rock Strength from Geophysical Logs

Week 4 (March 2)
Unit 7 – (Ch. 5) Faults and Fractures

Unit 8 – (Ch. 6) Stress Concentrations around Vertical Wells

HW2 Due; HW4 Assigned, Calculating Limits on Crustal Stresses

Week 5 (March 9)
Unit 9 – (Ch. 7) Hydraulic Fracturing, Measuring Shmin, Limiting Hydraulic Fracture Height and
Constraining Shmax

Unit 10 – (Ch. 8) Failure of Deviated Wells

HW3 Due; HW5 Assigned, Analysis of Fractures in Image Logs

Week 6 (March 16)

Unit 11 – (Ch. 9) State of Stress in Sedimentary Basins

Unit 12 – (Ch. 10) Wellbore Stability I

HW4 Due; HW6 Assigned, Analysis of Stress-Induced Wellbore Failures

Week 7 (March 23)

Unit 13 – (Ch. 10) Wellbore Stability II
Unit 14 – (Ch. 11) Critically-Stressed Faults and Fluid Flow

HW5 Due; HW7 Assigned, Identifying Critically-Stressed Faults

Week 8 (March 30)

Unit 15 – (Ch. 11) Fault Seal and Dynamic Constraints on Hydrocarbon Migration

Unit 16 – (Ch. 12) Effects of Depletion, Reservoir Stress Paths

HW6 Due; HW8 Assigned, Building a Geomechanical Model

Week 9 (April 6)
Unit 17 – (Ch. 12) Compaction of Weak Sands and Shales, Surface Subsidence

Unit 18 – Geomechanics of Shale Gas and Tight Oil Production I

HW7 Due

Week 10 (April 13)

Unit 19 – Geomechanics of Shale Gas and Tight Oil Production II

Unit 20 – Geomechanics and Induced and Triggered Seismicity

HW8 Due