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New Research Center Dedicated to Subsurface Modeling Adapted from a Press Release by USC Viterbi Extracting oil and natural gas from easy-to-reach places appears to be getting harder. As a result, major oil companies are researching and developing new technology to help detect underground oil and gas reservoirs, which could lie nearly 10,000 feet below the earth’s surface. Many challenges can arise through the complex process of detecting, drilling, and extracting resources from these reservoirs. The field of subsurface science seeks to understand the dynamics of underground rock formations during man-made distur- bances like oil and gas extraction. The CMG Industrial Research Center for Advanced Reservoir Characterization and Forecasting, whose mandate is to investigate leading-edge research and innovation in oil and gas reservoir modeling, pro- vided $1.35 million in seed funding for the center at University of Southern California (USC) Viterbi. The center will help develop innovative imaging technology and best practices for subsurface resource recovery, which are efficient and environmentally responsible. Behnam Jafarpour and Kristian Jessen, both associate professors in the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at USC Viterbi, will co-direct the center. Their focus over the next five years, the duration of the grant, will be to develop relation- ships with the industry and determine research topics and activities which address key challenges in subsurface modeling. “Subsurface characterization is very much like solving a giant jigsaw puzzle,” Jafarpour said. “You may have very few pieces of the puzzle here and there, but they reveal little information about what fills the gap between them.” Jafarpour’s background is in electrical engineering, so he will develop advanced 3-D imag- ing tools capable of creating a more complete picture of important material properties in underground rocks and their variability in space. Jessen brings expertise from the physics of fluid flow, specifically fluid f low in rocks, which actual ly have porous surfaces allowing for liquids and gases to pass through them. He intends to develop predictive models for the physics at play during fluid movement in the reservoirs themselves. Jessen explained, “[Jafarpour] tries to figure out what [the subsurface] looks like, while I predict how fluids will move in the subsurface. So, basically what he’s doing provides input to me in terms of the variability of the properties within the subsurface materials, and I try to look at how that would affect movement of fluids in a larger volume. That then feeds back into his work. We want to take the technology that is used to make decisions about how we recover and utilize the subsurface resources on the planet to the next level so that we can make even better decisions. We need to do a better job there to ensure that we develop and extract the resources in the most efficient ways possible.” USC Viterbi’s Behnam Jafarpour and Kristian Jessen, courtesy of Behnam Jafarpour. 12 DECEMBER 2017 WorldWide Drilling Resource ®