Annual Report 2011: FY July 1, 2010-June 30, 2011
Energy Minerals Division
During the past year, EMD has experienced tremendous growth in membership, and with improved EMD programs undertaken over the past year, this has finally allowed the general AAPG membership to gain free access to EMD’s many technical features designed specifically to be of use by geoscientists involved in unconventional and alternative energy resources in the U.S. and now throughout the world. The re-organization of EMD that began last year has continued with great success. The EMD website’s home pages are the doorways to EMD’s technical information (one for the public and one for EMD Member’s Only): http://emd.aapg.org.
Achievements
First, with the elimination of the EMD dues last year, combined with the elimination of a number of EMD committees that duplicated those already available within AAPG, communications with AAPG committees have been improved. With the increase in the quality of the technical information made available via the EMD website by the Unconventional Energy Resources Group, (consisting of the committees on coalbed methane, gas hydrates, tight gas sands, gas shales, oil (tar) sands, and oil shale), and via the Alternative Energy Resources Group, (consisting of the committees on coal, uranium (and nuclear minerals), geo-thermal energy, and the EMD-DEG co-committee on renewable energy resources), since March 2010, these expanded activities have prompted an increase in EMD membership approaching 180%, from 1,627 members to more than 4,539 by July 1, 2011 (see plot–left column). To date, EMD has gained 984 active members, 935 associate members, and 923 student members (the latter of which tend to be variable but may also translate into associate member status as the student graduates from college and goes to work). To place this growth in context, see the plot of historical EMD membership since 2000.
Second, over the past few years, EMD has increased its collective support of the planning and execution of the AAPG ACE, ICE, GTWs and other meetings through expanding the roles of the Commodity Committee chairs and section and regional councilors, with a special emphasis on the latter in the activities of the local, sectional, regional, and national geoscience-based societies and associations. The efforts have improved cooperation in advancing the development of quality geoscience in unconventional and alternative energy resource exploration, production and environmental management. The Houston ACE turned out to be a major success of more than 8,200 attendees with a concerted supporting effort coming from EMD. Final planning is underway for the Long Beach ACE in April 2012. A major effort is also being made by EMD to emphasize the EMD Regional activities in various parts of the world to support the International Conferences and Exhibitions being held overseas, such as the ICE held in Calgary, Fall, 2010, and to be held in Milan in late 2011, Singapore in 2012, among others in the planning stages.
Combined with the above, EMD has also expanded the roles of the EMD Commodity committees by providing support to the chairs in tasking them with appointing vice-chairs for industry, university and government. EMD also introduced a system to assist the chairs by widening participation in each of their Commodity committees. This consists of a chair-appointed Advisory Group to assist the chair and vice-chairs, and an observing group to monitor the committees’ overall activities that have been introduced (see plot for the number of EMD members interested in each Commodity committees’ observing group). Interest in possible appointment to the Advisory Group by the chair or in the general activities of the committee can be demonstrated by an interested EMD member by visiting the EMD Membership webpage and by clicking the boxes of interest. This action notifies the chair.
Another feature that has been developed over the past year is the interactive EMD-DEG-DPA Web Portal. This was designed to support all AAPG Divisions in providing up-to-date technical and media sources on the current issues of the day, the Divisions of which provide the third dimension to the AAPG. It is the responsibility of each of the EMD Commodity chairs to input technical reports, papers, news items, and supporting technical information covering conventional, unconventional and alternative energy resources and associated environmental topics of interest. Other members may also input information, all of which is reviewed by Web Portal staff for relevancy and appropriateness before allowing the material to go live to the Web Portal. It is complementary to AAPG’s other technical information systems currently available, such as Search and Discovery. The Web Portal is growing in popularity with EMD members and we anticipate this growth to increase in the years ahead.
Another aspect of EMD outreach to non-AAPG geoscientists and the general public is now being managed by each of the various Commodity committees through rejuvenating their respective activities on their associated Public Home pages covering each of the energy resource commodities involved. EMD also updated our Bylaws during the year to be consistent with the reorganization of EMD. These will be translated into a revised EMD Procedures Manual during the coming year.
EMD released two publications in 2010, four are planned for release in 2011, and two are in the pipeline and scheduled for release in early and mid 2012, respectively.
EMD Geoscientists
EMD is driven by geoscientists who consider their contributions to be pro-bono professional services to the EMD and AAPG. This service extends even to non-AAPG members and the general public for the sole purpose of expanding the knowledge and understanding of geo-sciences in the exploration, development, production, and environmental management of unconventional and alternative energy resources.
With such support, EMD is poised to continue to grow as new and existing AAPG members experience the benefit of becoming part of EMD and of becoming active in its ongoing goal of expanding the geosciences involved in unconventional and alternative energy resources in the U.S. and around the world.
| Published and Coming Attractions from EMD | Publication Date |
| Natural Gas Hydrates – Energy Resource Potential & Associated | February 2010 |
| Geologic Hazards – AAPG Memoir # 89 | |
| Carbon Dioxide Sequestration in Geological Media-State of the Science – AAPG Studies in Geology # 59 | July 2010 |
| Coal Assessment of Gulf Coast | 2011 |
| Heavy Oil/Oil Sands Petroleum Systems in Alberta & Beyond | 2012 |
| Unconventional Energy Resources & Geospatial Information | 2012 |
| The History and Path Forward of the Human Species into the Future: Energy Minerals in the Solar System | 2012 |
| Shale Petroleum Reservoirs | 2012 |
| Atlas of Coal Geology - 2nd Edition | 2012 |
The Future
EMD has encouraged diversity in officer elections and Commodity committee appointments. Women serve in eight senior management roles within EMD, including EMD president-elect (2012–2013); another was elected EMD vice-president (2010–2011). EMD continues to search out and vet viable candidates for future roles in EMD.
Senior professional geoscientists, whether they are men, women, or of a diverse racial background, all serve in various pro-bono positions within the EMD and AAPG as elected officers and as appointed chairs and vice-chairs of the Commodity Committees, as the section/regional councilors, and as the Supporting Committee chairs, all of whom guide EMD in continuing to reach for its membership-oriented goals. Without their dedicated efforts, EMD could not have progressed as we have over the past year.