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Sandbodies from storm‐dominated marine and marginal marine environments commonly contain intervals of laminated fine sandstones. A characteristic of such lamination is the presence of low angle cross lamination. In order to model correctly the effects of such lamination on a waterflood of an oil‐bearing shoreface sequence it was necessary to quantify the geometry of the laminaset elements. This challenge has been greatly complicated by the lack of outcrop of the formation of interest. The Middle Jurassic Rannoch Formation of the North Sea only occurs in the subsurface where it is not possible in core to measure the aspect ratio of laminasets directly. In this study, the laminaset geometry data that can be obtained from core (e.g. apparent set thicknesses) were collected for the Rannoch Formation. These data were compared with similar data from potential outcrop analogues in (1) the Cretaceous Kennilworth Member of the Blackhawk Formation in Utah, USA and (2) the Upper Jurassic Bencliff Grit from the Dorset coast, UK. A quantitative analysis of laminaset geometries has been used to compare subsurface core with potential outcrop analogues. The Rannoch Formation core is characterized by numerous low angle truncations. We have measured these features in two wells (means of 7.2° and 12.1°). Mean apparent set thicknesses were 0.24 and 0.19 m. In the outcrop sections studied, truncation angles ranged from 9.6° to 13.4° and mean set thicknesses from 0.24 to 0.34 m. Mean bounding surface dips of 5.8° and 8.6°, and mean laminaset lengths of 2.3 and 4.1 m were also measured. directly in the field and by using photomosaics. On the basis of this comparison, the Kennilworth Member in Utah was found to be the most suitable and the geometries (i.e. aspect ratios) measured there were used to generate an appropriate geometry of Rannoch laminaset geometries for use in engineering studies: laminaset length, 2.0 m; laminaset thickness, 0.2 m.

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