Alexander Hartwig (Head of Modelling at GEOS4) was guest speaker at the Subsurface Systems Modeling webinar, organised by EAGE´s Basin and Petroleum Systems Analysis Technical Community, on Wednesday, 28 January 2026 at 15:00 CET.
The session’s recording is now available at the EAGE YouTube channel. You may check out the video at this website.
At GEOS4 we apply a play-based exploration and modelling scheme to explore natural hydrogen occurrences. When the uncertainties are large, it is best to keep it simple. We investigate multiple geologic scenarios and weigh them against actual observations of subsurface H2.
In his presentation titled ‘Using regional scale basin models to investigate natural hydrogen generation and solubility’ Alex did
- show how we model three different hydrogen sources: radiolysis, serpentinization and thermogenic,
- explain our approach to solubility modeling (the key to H2 transport!),
- address model sensitivity and error margins,
- present our ideas about “migration losses” (quite important if the trap isn’t close to the source or when working with seeps)
- show a mass-balance combining the above, and
- finish off with a discussion on burial history vs H2 yield.