Glossary
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| Acreage | An area covering a company’s exploration permit. |
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| Basin | A basin is an area in which the crust has subsided and the depression has been filled with sediments. Petroleum basins are basins with a petroleum system. |
| Borehole | Synonymous to well. |
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| Caledonian orogeny | The Caledonian orogeny is a mountain building event recorded in the mountains and hills of northern England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and west Norway. |
| Cretaceous | The Cretaceous period is a subdivision of the geologic timescale, reaching from the end of the Jurassic period, about 146 million years ago, to the beginning of the Tertiary period about 65.5 million years ago. |
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| DECC | Department of Energy and Climate Change. The UK government department which includes the Energy Group which deals with energy related matters from production to supply. It is committed to delivering the Government’s policy goals of safe, secure and sustainable energy supplies and ultimately a low-carbon economy, through competitive and independently regulated energy markets. |
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| Exploration company | A company the principal activity of which is exploration. In the context of Hurricane Exploration PLC the purpose of exploration is to look for commercial quantities of hydrocarbon. |
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| Fractured reservoir | A reservoir which has its porosity and permeability associated with naturally occurring fractures. Naturally occurring fractures result from a variety of geological processes. |
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| Gas | A mixture of gaseous hydrocarbon of different molecular weights. |
| Geologic | Of or relating to Earth or Earth processes. |
| Geoscience | Earth sciences such as geology, geophysics, geochemistry and sedimentology. |
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| Hydrocarbon | An organic chemical compound composed mainly of hydrogen and carbon atoms. In the context of hydrocarbon exploration hydrocarbon is sought in liquid or gaseous form. |
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| Jurassic | The Jurassic period is a major unit of the geologic timescale that extends from the end of the Triassic period, about 200 million years ago to the beginning of the Cretaceous period about 146 million years ago. |
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| Igneous rock | Igneous rock is formed from magma (melted rock) that has cooled and solidified, either within the Earth's crust or on the Earth's surface. |
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| Licensing Round | An offer by government for companies to bid for hydrocarbon exploration rights over specific acreage. |
| Logging tool | A devise for determining properties of the formation, or characteristics of the borehole environment. |
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| Metamorphic rock | A rock that has undergone chemical or structural changes. Heat, pressure, or a chemical reaction may cause such changes. |
| Migration | Migration is the process of hydrocarbon moving away from the source rock. |
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| Oil | A mixture of liquid hydrocarbon of different molecular weights. |
| Oil originally in place | The estimated amount of crude oil in a reservoir before any production. Sometimes referred to as Oil initially in place or Hydrocarbon initially in place (HCIIP). |
| Onlap | Is the geometry that describes successively younger rock strata extending progressively further across an erosion surface cut in older rocks. |
| Operator | The company that engages the services for drilling, seismic and other geoscience activities on a given licence. |
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| PEDL | Production Exploration and Development Licence. |
| Period | A geologic period is a subdivision of geologic time. Periods are considered an informal designation but are still used to demarcate rock layers and the fossil record. |
| Permeability | The ability of rock to transmit fluids through pore spaces. |
| Petroleum systems | A basin which contains all the elements necessary to generate and accumulate hydrocarbons. |
| Pinchout | The disappearance of a reservoir or potential reservoir interval, between two layers of non reservoir rock, over a horizontal distance. |
| Play | A play consists of a collection of prospects having relatively homogeneous geologic characteristics. |
| Porosity | Volume of pore spaces between mineral grains expressed as a percentage of the total rock volume. Thus porosity measures the capacity of the rock to hold oil, gas, or water. |
| Prospect | An area designated for the potential drilling of development or exploratory wells. |
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| Recoverable oil/gas | The estimated amount of crude oil/gas which could be brought to the surface from a given reservoir. |
| Reservoir | A subsurface porous and permeable rock formation in which hydrocarbons can be found. |
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| Seal | The seal, or cap rock, is a unit with low permeability that impedes the escape of hydrocarbons from the reservoir rock. |
| Sedimentary rock | A type of rock formed by chemical precipitation or by sedimentation and cementation of mineral grains transported to a site of deposition by water, wind, or ice. |
| Seismic survey | A technique for determining the detailed structure of the rocks underlying a particular area by passing acoustic shock waves into the strata and recording the resultant signal. |
| Source | Source rock refers to rocks from which hydrocarbons have been generated or are capable of being generated. |
| Stratigraphic trap | Hydrocarbon traps are produced by changes in rock type associated with geological features such channels, unconformities, reefs and buried hills. |
| Structural Trap | Hydrocarbon traps that result from geological structures such as folds or faults are called structural traps. |
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| Tertiary |
Interval of geologic time lasting from approximately 65.5 million to 2.6 million years ago |
| Trap | A trap is a geologic structure or a stratigraphic feature capable of retaining hydrocarbons (see hydrocarbon traps on main menu). |
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| Wells | Wells or boreholes are cylindrical shafts drilled into the ground for geological exploration and or extraction of resources. |
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