Annual Report 2012: FY July 1, 2011-June 30, 2012
GIS Publications Committee
The GIS Publications committee and Datapages, under the leadership of the Elected Editor and Geoscience Director, solicit and evaluate proposals for publications, recommend standards for format and quality, and ensure quality and rigor through peer review.
- Improve quality of GIS publications by soliciting many proposals and increasing selectivity from among these.
- Manage expectations for acquiring and publishing GIS material. Develop and implement standards for quality and for technical review.
- Create a global network of GIS committee members and collaborators from industry, academia, and geological surveys.
- Partner with the print-focused Publications Committee to produce joint print and GIS projects whenever practical.
- Contribute to the management of consortium funds by providing two AAPG GIS Committee representatives to sit on the OSU-AAPG Consortium Advisory Board; high-grade Datapages and GIS Publications Committee project funding proposals and liaise with the OSU consortium cartography department to ensure production of high quality and timely results.
Accomplishments
Focus
This past year, the committee’s focus was (1) support and justification of the AAPG Datapages GIS portal initiative, (2) soliciting and peer reviewing author-funded GIS projects, (3) selecting and peer reviewing GIS projects for funding by the OSU-AAPG Foundation GIS consortium, and (4) formulating a more distinct identity in the eyes of the membership and AAPG leadership.
1. AAPG Datapages DEO-GIS Portal
The committee sponsored a GIS Portal Position Paper to support and justify the major ‘Datapages Exploration Objects’ (DEO-GIS) initiative that was sanctioned by the Datapages BOD 2Q 2012. Project leader and GIS committee member Peter Wigley, is currently raising funds to execute the initiative. Going forward, the GIS committee will provide expertise and guidance as the initiative is developed and rolled out, and the GIS Committee’s open-file products will be indexed and available via the portal.
2. Author-funded projects
Peer-reviewed and published this past year:
- Source Rocks of the World (Horn)
- Giant Fields of the World (Horn)
- Impact Craters of the World (Rajmon)
- Regional Pressure in the Gulf of Mexico Basin, USA (Burke and Kinney, USGS)
- Memoir 89 Natural Gas Hydrates (Johnson, EMD)
In progress:
- Burial Histories of the World (Horn)
3. OSU – AAPG Foundation GIS / Geosciences Consortium
The consortium advisory board reviewed submittals and recommended funding for 19 GIS projects from the GIS Committee, Datapages and OSU Research. Since inception of the consortium in 2010, a total of $457,044 has been awarded to the OSU cartography department to publish GIS projects, however only two projects have been completed. In 4Q 2011, a new OSU cartography department project lead was hired, and Datapages and the GIS committee is working with the department to improve performance.
Following a series of advisory board reviews in years 2010-12, the following GIS Committee sponsored geographic and geothematic projects are now funded. The GIS Committee will peer review Datapages sponsored projects as well.
Geographic
- Tectonic Map of North America (Norton)
- Shell Atlas of the Midcontinent (Bishop)
- Salt Dome Fields, Phase II (Hall)
- Geology of Ethiopia (St. John)
- Tectonics of the Indian Ocean (St. John)
- Australia Tectonic Framework (Norton/ Loutit)
- Appalachian Basin Devonian Shale Gas (Avary)
- Pennsylvania Digital Oil and Gas Mapping (Carter, DEG)
- East Central Texas Depositional Systems and Deep Basin Lignite (Ambrose, EMD)
Geothematic
- Global Heat Flow database of the IHFC (Gosnold)
- Although the GIS Committee identity has improved with the optimization of the committee’s website design and content, additional improvements are needed.
Path Forward
Challenges
A major challenge facing the committee is improving the productivity of the OSU cartography department, which is critical to the both the committee and Datapages. The cartography department has experienced difficulty with retaining a consistent student workforce, and this has resulted in lower than expected productivity. New project management leadership at the OSU Cartography Department will hopefully lead to a more successful program.
Summary
Going forward, the committee will continue to solicit high-impact projects, with an additional focus on further development of joint publishing projects with the EMD and DEG, and to support the OSU Cartography Department. However, due to the poor performance of the OSU Cartography Department, the committee will focus on primarily on author-funded projects in the coming year, where we have demonstrated clear success.
Bret J. Fossum, Chair
Richard S. Bishop, Vice-Chair
Committee members: Daniel Scott Beaty, Richard S. Bishop (vice-chair), James Sophocles Cokinos, Joseph William Cross, Andrew Cutts, Bret John Fossum (chair), Jingyao Gong, David Joseph Hansen, Scott Jean Hills, Myron (Mike) K. Horn, Kevin C. King, Stephen Ernest Laubach, Samuel H. Limerick, Domenico Lodola, Gayle H. McColloch Jr., James McDonald, William A. Morgan, Oliver Nicholas Morris, Ian Norton, Joseph Andrew Ontko Jr., and Peter Wigley