Resource to reserve calculations in unconventional shale gas or oil exploitation depends on quanitifying and characterising "sweet spots". Sweet spots typically occur where black shale deposits have high total organic carbon, stiff/brittle rheology, abundant natural fractures, sufficient thickness and maturity, and high gas-in-place. In turn, these characteristics are controlled by fundamental geological processes including organic productivity, run-off, diagenesis, and tectonic and burial histories - all of which vary from the edges to the centres of depositional basins (i.e. proximal to distal). Sweet spot characterisation requires a multi-disciplinary approach, and access to datasets that encompass the entire range of proximal to distal environments and tectonic or burial histories. Jurassic shales in NW Europe (Liassic, Kimmeridgian), include world-class hydrocarbon source rock that underlies much of the North Sea. Jurassic rocks crop out in coastal sections in the UK and northern France, crucially these strata, have been cored and logged in many North Sea wells. Taken in their entirety, these outcrop and borehole datasets should provide an unrivalled record of the proximal to distal transition within a mud-prone stratigraphic interval across a broad region characterised by varied, but well-known tectonic and burial histories. This basin-wide dataset has the potential to provide insights into sweet spot identification not available in individual shale gas concessions that comprise small, sub-areas of much larger shale basins. Further benefits would be to identify subtle, conventional stratigraphic traps, e.g. sandy intervals within an otherwise mud-prone sequence. Despite its outstanding potential, a rigorous basin-wide study of the Jurassic in NW Europe has been hampered due to the disparate and dispersed nature of the datasets. This NERC catalyst proposal will connect a multi-disciplinary team of NERC- and industrially-funded researchers at Durham and Newcastle Universities with industrial geoscientists. Our aim is to conduct a scoping study of existing Liasic and Kimmeridgian datasets to evaluate their potential for further in-depth research into sweet spot characterisation. Catalyst funding will enable us to generate an open access GIS meta-database of existing maps, outcrops, cores, cuttings and wireline logs that penetrate Jurassic rocks of the North Sea, England and northern France. To facilitate knowledge exchange and gain a deep understanding of the challenges of sweet spot characterisation, JARR will organise and host a series of industry-academia field- and core-based workshops in the UK and northern France that will focus on three key themes: (1) basin-wide variations in black shale deposition; (2) basin-wide lithostratigraphic controls on natural fractures in proximal to distal environments; (3) basin-wide variations in the mechanical properties of mud-prone sequences, held at key onshore localities. JARR will synthesize the discussions into an open access report that will critically appraise the Jurassic as a proximal to distal shale basin analogue. JARR will publish the report and GIS meta-database on its website (www.shale-research.org), available to industry and public. The project will culminate in a professionally-facilitated industry-academia "sandpit" meeting, which will develop proposals for a network of collaborative Joint Industry Projects (JIPs) based around the three key themes identified above. We anticipate the JIPs will either utilize directly the datasets identified during the scoping study, and/or develop questions raised and "lessons learned" during the workshops and sandpit discussion. The JARR proposal will help UK-based hydrocarbon companies to better understand resource to reserve conversion factors by unlocking additional value from existing datasets, and could ultimately provide them with real competitive advantage in unconventional exploration.

Hydrocarbons and their derivative products are central to today's society. We know that the source of hydrocarbons are products of buried ancient plants and animals. Less clear, and question that petroleum geoscientists both academic and industrial are challenged with, is establishing the time that hydrocarbons, such as oil, form and how they are trapped in petroleum systems large enough to be exploited. To address this question of the origin and time of formation of hydrocarbons, the naturally occurring isotopic clock of 187Rhenium-187Osmium present in oil is utilized. This ability to directly date oil and not rely on multi-component models are important because petroleum explorers, need to know the origin of hydrocarbons in a sedimentary basin to constrain where they might be able to accumulate, or whether they are able to accumulate at all. With oil exploration drillholes costing multiple millions of dollars, every piece of data informing site location is of immense worth. Whilst the potential utility of the Rhenium-Osmium system to petroleum systems is now proven, its wide scale application and routine development by industry during exploration is still very much in its infancy. Thus, engagement with industry is needed to develop a portfolio of asset-based case studies needed to improve the understanding of Rhenium-Osmium systematics and assess the general applicability of the method to hydrocarbon-bearing basins worldwide. Work related to Objective (a) (see Objectives section above) will be to create a multi-company (BP, Total, Statoil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Shell, Chemostrat) Re-Os Advisory Board (ROAB) with two main purposes (as noted above). Work related to Objective (b) will involve ROAB members to become a strategic partner based on established relationships with companies already engaging in the use of Re-Os; and companies with shared interest in the application of Re-Os system above and beyond its current use. All of the founding ROAB members have global expertise in petroleum exploration and thus compliment, support and develop the PI and Co-I research capabilities establishing a strong-integrated research team, e.g., traditional industrial applied techniques (basin modeling, organic geochemistry) with novel Re-Os geochemistry and fracture network models. Work related to objective (c) includes a 2 workshop hosted by the PIs at Durham which will include a summary of the current knowledge base and will be followed by a think tank session on how the Rhenium-Osmium system can be better understood and developed for the end-user. An Impact Case Study will be developed with the help of a science writer in the Durham University Media Office.