Memoir 121's 20 chapters offer a holistic view of methods, datasets, challenges, and business contexts that entertain the mindset of professionals studying, exploring, and producing unconventional plays. The Memoir presents a chapter on each geological discipline involved in unconventional exploration, and provides five case studies integrating all disciplines while describing the workflow to obtain production. All content has been peer reviewed by professionals and academics working in the basin and by thought leaders of each discipline.

The large, high-quality dataset discloses the results of advanced research completed in the past decade in the Vaca Muerta play, the first unconventional self-sourced play outside of North America to have been thoroughly studied, tested with the latest technologies, and put in production with satisfactory commercial results.

These achievements derive from the "coopetition" work methodology applied by a multidisciplinary, international group of geologists from different companies and institutions. Coopetition is a new form of scientific and technical communication that consists of open and free cooperation among players within an environment of sensitive technological and commercial competition. It requires passion for science, teamwork attitude, and work ethic, and the ultimate goal of this Memoir is to contribute to the comprehension of unconventional plays by sharing the rich outcomes of our "socio-scientific" experiment of coopetition.

Table of Contents