Typical Ainsa Itinerary
Day 1
Meet at Barcelona airport at approx. 13.00 p.m.
Travel to Ainsa in hire vehicles (~3.5 hours). Arrive Ainsa Romanesque town square for late afternoon drink, introduction, and orientation.
Accommodation in Ainsa.
Day 2
Locality 1. Guaso
Overview of South Pyrenean foreland basin tectonics, structure and stratigraphy. Introduction to stratigraphy of the Ainsa Basin deep-marine, slope and shallow-marine, fluvio-deltaic systems. Temporal framework.
Locality 2. Stop along road from Ainsa to El Pueyo de Araguas
Seismic-scale outcrops of Ainsa II Fan submarine channels
Overview of Ainsa Drilling Project (results) and applicability.
Locality 3. Usana
Ainsa, I, II and III fans, Morillo Fan.
Locality 4. Quarry ~1 km south of Ainsa
Ainsa I Fan channel margins and channel axis. Channel-levee-overbank system. Architectural elements, sedimentary facies, processes, net:gross, internal heterogeneities, shale lengths, reservoir problems, etc.
Accommodation in Ainsa.
Day 3
Locality 5. Stop along road from Ainsa to Labuerda
Ainsa I Fan channel margin. Channel off-axis versus levee versus fan lateral-margin sedimentation. Thin-bedded turbidites as potential reservoir interval. Producing issues.
Locality 6. Hotel Peña Montanesa.
Coffee stop and gamma ray correlation exercise for well data. Discussion about sub-seismic scale correlation and potential pitfalls.
Locality 7. Forcat Stream
Ainsa I, II and III fan systems. Outcrop log tied to well data.
Locality 8. Drive to Broto/Torla from Ainsa (1 hour).
Basinward, more distal sediments from Ainsa basin. Sheet versus lobe deposits. Discussion of bypass, basin-floor versus lower-slope fans, channelised versus braided and unchannelised deposits. Confinement in turbidite systems, basinward changes as systematic and simple versus complex because of basinward changing seafloor gradients and/or changing degrees of confinement. Concept of proximality versus distality in turbidites systems.
Day 4
Locality 9. Boltana Castle area
Ainsa III Fan
Boltana anticline and intra-basinal tectonic control on sedimentation
Controls on Ainsa fan sedimentation, tectonic, eustatic, sediment flux. Relative changes in base level and temporal framework. Discussion of Ainsa fan systems as analogs. Well placement in Ainsa systems.
Locality 10. Rio Eña
Guaso II Fan channel system. Youngest sand-rich system of deep-marine Ainsa basin-fill before onset of delta-related sedimentation.
Locality 11.
Sobrarbe Delta and Escanilla Formation delta (stratigraphy immediately above Ainsa turbidite system). Spectacular seismic-scale outcrops of deltaic clinoforms.
Accommodation in Ainsa.
Day 5
Drive Ainsa to Montserrat (~2.5 hours).
Locality 12. Montserrat
Eocene shallow-marine, fan-delta, fluvio-deltaic sedimentation. Similar sediment source area/s and environments for Ainsa and related fan systems.
Arrive Barcelona airport by ~16.00. Trip ends.
