Structural exploration workflow
This section suggests a flow of tasks to help explorationists define a drill location, moving from the regional scale to the drill site. The discussion is from the perspective of a full-cycle exploration play, where we have a play concept and are looking for a drill location to test it.
The workflow
We begin by envisioning a structural play concept based on the thrust belt play of the U.S. Rocky Mountain area. The following workflow discussion tracks this play concept from inception to drill location through a “normal” structural exploration process, as shown in the figure.
Effects of scale
The technical tasks we identify are often related to the scale of our observation, from regional to microscopic. The following figure summarizes where the different techniques and tools described in section B can be applied. This sequence of tasks, in varying degrees, applies to any structural play.