Montana State students gain access to powerful geologic modeling software thanks to donation from SLB

BOZEMAN - Beginning this fall, Montana State University students will have access to the same geologic modeling software used by some of the world's leading energy companies, thanks to an in-kind donation valued at $76 million from the global energy technology company SLB.

"It's incredibly exciting from both a research and a teaching perspective," said Zachary Burton, assistant professor in the Department of Earth Sciences in MSU's College of Letters and Science, whose research focuses on energy resources and on critical and strategic minerals for national security and high-tech applications. "Ultimately, MSU students will be able to develop a pretty unique skill set to compete for high-paying jobs around the world."

For the in-kind donation, SLB granted MSU licenses to two software programs, PetroMod basin modeling software and Petrel subsurface software, both of which are used by geologists to reconstruct the geological evolution of sedimentary basins over millions of years and to forecast the likely locations of undiscovered resource deposits. The cost of those software licenses, if purchased commercially, would be $76 million.

Burton, who began working extensively with the software as a doctoral student at Stanford University, said he plans to incorporate the tools immediately into his Geology, Energy and Mineral Modeling Laboratory, or GEMM Lab, at MSU. He also will teach students to use the programs in a new 3D geologic modeling course for undergraduate and graduate students launched this fall.

While the software was developed for the petroleum industry, Burton said it is also of interest to companies working with non-hydrocarbon fuels, such as hydrogen and helium, as well as those working with critical minerals and metallic ore deposits. It's also starting to be used to examine the carbon capture and storage potential of sedimentary basins, he said.

Burton likens basins to large "bathtubs" ranging in size, from tens to hundreds to even thousands of kilometers across. They exist in lakes, along the margins of continents and in other areas where depressions or low points form, where they collect vast quantities of sediments over long spans of time.

Burton explained that different types of organic matter, such as dead plankton, accumulate in basins. There they can be squeezed and heated over millions of years to produce large amounts of oil, though oil isn't the only resource that basins yield. In marine basins, metal-rich fluids may concentrate deep underground or spill out onto ocean floors to form valuable ore deposits. Giant domes of salt can move through a basin, helping to trap and accumulate different resources in specific areas. Porous sand deposits may effectively store carbon dioxide in addition to acting as reservoirs for oil and gas.

Over time, basins undergo significant changes due to factors including erosion, further deposition, temperature changes, fluid flow and tectonic activity. The modeling software takes all those into account, helping users reconstruct the geologic history of basins to predict where fuels or metals may be trapped and determine whether and when those resources are likely to have migrated from one location to another.

Modeling the dynamics of very large-scale geologic systems over multimillion-year timescales requires extremely intensive computing capability. The SLB software will operate on MSU's Tempest supercomputer, which is part of the university's Research Cyberinfrastructure core facility. Burton said having access to that resource made it feasible for MSU to accept SLB's donation.

"This modeling software does best when it is able to access high-performance computing capabilities that can run many models or simulations in parallel," he said, noting that being able to run the software on MSU's existing systems can reduce the time needed to run a single simulation by days or even weeks, and it also allows researchers to run multiple simulations at the same time.

"Computational power ends up being really important when students and professionals move from a one-dimensional realm into two dimensions or three dimensions while adding a (geologic) time component," he said.

Burton said SLB's donation provides MSU a rare opportunity to become a leading academic institution in the field of computational geologic modeling.

"It's a pretty exceptional chance for students to have access to and be trained on the leading global software for these systems," he said.

He envisions expanding the use of the modeling software to investigate critical minerals such as lithium, copper, cobalt, zinc or the rare earth elements. Burton currently travels the world studying how rare earth elements and other economic metals are moved by geochemical and aqueous forces in different environments, including deserts and permafrost.

"Especially given Montana's mining history - both the beneficial impacts of extraction and the health and environmental impacts - we're seeking to harness these tools in a way that's positive for students, for science and for society in terms of the current extreme attention on critical minerals nationally and internationally," Burton said.

Alison Harmon, MSU's vice president for research and economic development, said the in-kind donation exemplifies the value of industry partnerships in higher education.

"In this case, it provides hands-on learning experiences with software that will better prepare MSU graduates for careers in geology and the exploration of geologic resources," Harmon said. "Dr. Burton's longstanding relationship with SLB has resulted in an exceptional opportunity for our students and researchers."