May 2012

This month’s column is extracted from my address at the opening session of the AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition in Long Beach, Calif., on April 22. I thank AAPG staff members Vicki Beighle and David Lange for their extraordinary help in generating these statistics and figures.

This edition of EXPLORER began with President Paul Weimer presenting a detailed analysis of membership trends in the Association.

Hydraulic fracturing technology was pioneered in the mid-1940s by Halliburton, and arguably questionable as to its early success.

The traditional tool interpreters have used to establish correspondences between subsurface stratigraphy and surface-measured seismic data has been synthetic seismograms calculated from well log data.

Geology’s role in unconventional natural gas production (via hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling) often is overlooked by the public, but it is a key factor in ensuring that natural gas production is efficient, economic and environmentally responsible.

Even from the beginning, the discovery well gave a hint that the Permian Basin was going to be a major oil province. That well was the Santa Rita #1 – Santa Rita, the patron Saint of the Impossible.

Oil production in Nigeria started in 1958 after the discovery of Oloibiri oil field in 1956.

At the center of the AAPG Foundation is its support of scientific advances in the geosciences and petroleum geology to enable broad availability of geoscience information to professionals and the public, to enhance public awareness of geoscience and energy issues and to provide educational opportunities for students and teachers from K-12 and beyond.