Annual Report 2011: FY July 1, 2010-June 30, 2011
GIS Publications
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.
Vision
AAPG will make its Geographic Information Systems (GIS) spatial publications indispensible to its members and to the petroleum geoscience community by innovative, timely and high-quality publications.
Mission
The GIS Publications committee, under the leadership of the Elected Editor, solicits and evaluates proposals for GIS publications, recommends standards for format and quality, and ensures quality and rigor through peer review.
Accomplishments
Focus
This past year, the committee’s focus was (1) selecting and peer reviewing GIS projects for funding by the OSU-AAPG Foundation GIS consortium, (2) soliciting and peer reviewing self-funded GIS projects, (3) exploiting the technical skills and resources of the committee through peer-review and consultation, and (4) forming more robust joint publishing partnerships with the Publications Committee, EMD and DEG.
OSU – AAPG Foundation GIS/Geosciences Consortium
The consortium advisory board reviewed submittals and recommended funding for several GIS projects. The annual funding level for the consortium is $240,000 with 40 percent assigned to the GIS Publications committee, 40 percent to Datapages and 20 percent to OSU research. Following a series of advisory board reviews, the following geographic and geothematic projects are now underway (principal investigator):
Geographic
- Tectonic Map of North America (Norton)
- Rockies Stratigraphic Framework Atlas (Bishop/RMAG)
- Nevada Petroleum Well Locations and Files (Hess)
- Shell Atlas of the Midcontinent (Bishop)
- Geochemical Facies Mapping of Devonian Black Shale (Cruse)
- Georeferencing of Maps of Salt Dome Fields, Phase II (Hall)
- Geology of Ethiopia (St. John)
- Australia Tectonic Framework (Norton/ Loutit)
Geothematic
- Global Heat Flow database of the IHFC (Gosnold)
- Global Atlas of Outcropping Reservoir Rocks (Puckette)
- Global Ophiolite Distribution (Byrnes)
- Incised Valleys Database (Puckette)
Additionally, the following projects are under review for 2011:
- Exxon Tectonic Map of the World (Bishop / Norton)
- Memoir 89 Natural Gas Hydrates (Johnson, EMD)
- East Central Texas Depositional Systems and Deep Basin Lignite (Ambrose, EMD)
- Pennsylvania Digital Oil and Gas Mapping (Carter, DEG)
- Tectonics of the Indian Ocean (St. John)
- Louisiana Oil and Gas Fields Vectorization (Gong)
- Geologic Map of the Eastern Great Basin, Nevada and Utah (Alderman)
- Atlas of Modern Deltas (Puckette) Gulf of Mexico Hydrocarbon Seeps and Fields Atlas (Weimer)
- Appalachian Basin Devonian Shale Gas (Avary)
Self-funded projects
The self-funded projects underway are as follows:
- Source Rocks of the World (Horn)
- Giant Fields of the World (Horn)
- Burial Histories of the World (Horn)
- Exploration Fabric of Africa (Wigley)
- Impact Craters of the World (Rajmon)
- MORVEL Global Plate Velocities (DeMets)
Projects published in the AAPG Open-File Website since 2010 ACE
- Petroleum Systems of the Gulf Coast (Pitman, 2008)
- Modification of Line Features of Tectonic Map of the World (Bally)
Editorial Board and Peer Review
GIS projects captured through the consortium and self-funded are peer reviewed by the committee, Datapages staff, and external experts. Additionally, all projects submitted by the GIS Publications Committee, and funded by the AAPG-OSU consortium, will be published on the AAPG GIS Open-File website. Authors of self-funded projects are also encouraged to publish on the AAPG GIS Open-File website.
A proposal to form a GIS Publications Editorial Board was prepared in 2011, with seven members of the committee accepting invitations to serve. The focus of the board will be to champion new projects, to support the mission and to create a more robust committee identity. The committee chair and vice-chair are working with the Elected Editor and Geoscience Director to properly recognize the group, with an official rollout in 3Q2011.
Committee Membership
The committee comprises 21 professionals, including both subsurface and GIS specialists. Both disciplines are important to ensure that the committee’s charge can be properly addressed. Additionally, three AAPG staff members are active on the committee.
Path Forward
Challenges
Two main challenges face the committee – formulation of a more robust identity in the eyes of the AAPG membership, and improving the productivity of the OSU cartography department. The cartography department, which comprises mainly students, has experienced difficulty with retaining a consistent workforce, and this has resulted in lower than expected productivity. A vetted action plan is being implemented by the committee chairman and AAPG to address these issues.
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, DEG and the print publications committee. In concert with the AAPG, the committee aims to create a base for web-based technical interest groups through our geothematic products. The AAPG–OSU consortium is instrumental in the success of meeting the committee goals and objectives, and the publishing goals of the AAPG.
Bret J. Fossum, Chair Richard S. Bishop, Vice-chair Bill S. Morgan, Committee manager
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, Samuel H. Limerick, Domenico Lodola, Gayle H. McColloch Jr., James McDonald, Oliver Nicholas Morris, Ian Norton, Joseph Andrew Ontko Jr., and Peter Wigley