We are interested in using static geomodels to explore the impact of geological heterogeneities on various physical processes such as fluid flow, wave propagation and mechanical deformation. As all these processes are non-linear, a small geomodel perturbation may, in principle, have a relatively large impact on the physical response. Our goal is to understand which geological parameters have an impact for a given physical process. This paves the way for reducing geological uncertainty by solving inverse problems. In addressing these issues, we consider the complementarity between classical bottom-up approaches (which mainly defines model parameters based on prior geological knowledge) and the top-down approach (where spatial complexity emerges from the inverse process).

Restoration and Geomechanics

Geological structures originate from and exert a control on the mechanical evolution of the subsurface. This research line aims at defining new ways to assess the relations between the geometry and the stress state of the subsurface at different time scales.

At geological time scale, 3D structural restoration has implications for testing the structural consistency of 3D structural interpretations and for quantitative modeling of the paleo-geometry of basins and reservoirs. It can also provide guidelines to understand how strain localized and how fractures developed through time. 

At human and natural resource management time scale, this research aims at better using prior geological knowledge in stress predictions. This has implications for drilling operations and for modeling the generation or reactivation of fractures and faults due to variations of pore pressure and effective stress.


We are working on effective elastic medium computation for elastic wave propagation. Depending on the wave bandwidth, we have developed two codes to compute equivalent medium properties from fine-scale descriptions of the medium. We also look at new ways to appraise static geomodels from seismic data. this can be useful for veryfying the consistency of interpretations, and also to test the value of new seismic experiments in reducting geological uncertainty.


We generate different kinds of flow simulation grids (corner-point, unstructured control-volumes or unstructured CVFE grids) to model fluid flow in the subsurface using external flow simulators such as Schlumberger's Eclipse, Stanford's GPRS or Melbourne/ETH's CSMP++.  Ahead of the flow simulation, we also work on using connectivity information to characterize complex geologic media, e.g., using percolation theory.