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Explorer Emphasis Article By Emily Llinás

Deep-Time Digital Earth Aims to Create Shared, Searchable Sources of Geological Data

In a world where everything seems to be connected – information, technology, viruses – it only makes sense that geological data should be the same. The reality, however, is different. Geological data collected by individuals, companies and academic institutions across the world over hundreds of years is scattered across the globe and stored in different formats. “At the moment geoscience is really held back in many areas because we haven’t managed to set data free. It’s still in isolated databases, or even worse, in analogue form,” said Michael Stephenson, who is part of a group of scientists spanning three dozen countries who are working to consolidate worldwide data into a searchable platform, Deep-time Digital Earth, described by some as a “geological Google.”

Added on 01 July, 2021

Explorer Article By Heather Saucier

Hope for Alaska's Oil Projects Fueled by Recent Court Decisions

Just as Alaska was bracing itself for the economic fallout of the Biden administration’s adversarial stance on oil and gas, two recent court decisions are giving the state hope. On June 15, a federal judge lifted the administration’s temporary ban on federal lease sales, clearing the way for a highly anticipated lease sale in the prolific National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska. And, on May 26, a brief filed by the U.S. Department of Justice affirmed that the Willow Project, a major discovery in NPRA that has been tied up in environmental-related lawsuits, complies with environmental regulations. While it remains unclear how soon the NPRA lease sale can take place, it is expected that the Willow project, one of the North Slope’s largest projects in recent years, will move forward.

Added on 01 July, 2021

Explorer Article By Doug Cook,William Ambrose

Perseverance, Ingenuity are Exploring Jezero Crater

The Mars Perseverance rover has achieved many milestones with more than 100 sols of exploration on the Red Planet. Perseverance and its operators at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have tested all of the rover’s cameras and instruments. The rover has returned more than 76,000 raw images that are loaded in the mission multimedia catalog available online to everyone. The Ingenuity Mars helicopter has been deployed while Perseverance monitored and relayed all seven successful flights. Now, with three more flight credits, Perseverance and Ingenuity are traveling south exploring Jezero crater together.

Added on 01 July, 2021

Learn! Blog By Susan Nash

Interview with Herman Darman

Welcome to an interview with Herman Darman, whose career in petroleum geology is now transitioning to geothermal energy, particularly in Indonesia, where there are volcanoes as well as repurposeable oil and gas wells.

Added on 17 June, 2021

Explorer Article By Alan Burnham

Modernizing Vitrinite Reflectance Models for Paleothermal History Calibration

Easy%R₀ has been perhaps the most widely used model over the past 30 years to help calibrate paleothermal histories. It was published in the AAPG Bulletin in 1990 by Jerry Sweeney and me, and it is one of the most highly-cited articles in the Bulletin in the last 40 years. As the person who constructed the Easy%R₀ algorithm, I would like to share some of the drivers for how the parameters were chosen and why it is appropriate now to move on to more recent models that appear to be more universally correct.

Added on 01 June, 2021

Explorer Division Column DEG By Don Clarke

Industry Changes Mean New Job Opportunities

The petroleum industry has changed and is under attack. Many want to stop production of carbon-based fuels. There is a logic to this if we look to the future. We need to sustain energy production and fill the holes in the current alternative energy industries like solar, wind turbines, geothermal and advanced batteries. This does not mean oil industry jobs will be eliminated. They will just change.

Added on 01 June, 2021

Explorer Article By Doug Cook

Perseverance Rover and Ingenuity Flight Tests in Jezero Crater

At the time of this writing, it is May 15, 2021 that is Sol 83 for the Perseverance “Percy” Rover on Mars. Last month, we witnessed the deployment and first flight of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter. With the world watching the first powered aerial flight on another planet, Ingenuity has accomplished successively more difficult flight tests this month while Percy observes and relays flight data and images to Earth.

Added on 01 June, 2021

Explorer Article By Barry Friedman

'Infrastructure' Bill Includes Major Proposals for the Energy Sector

When introducing his American Jobs Plan, President Biden promised it would invest “in America in a way we have not invested since we built the interstate highways and won the Space Race.” To put that investment in perspective, the interstate highway system, encompassing 47,000 miles of roads, cost $500 billion in today’s dollars, adjusting for inflation; the Apollo Program, about $194 billion. The price of the American Jobs Plan: $2.3 trillion. Included is significant investment proposed for the energy sector, which includes expanding clean energy sector tax credits, offering block grants and increasing government purchasing power to aid the new renewable sector.

Added on 01 June, 2021

Explorer Article By Emily Llinás

CarbonSAFE Project Uses Core Technology to Identify CO₂ Storage Potential

Increasing global concern about climate change and its impact on the environment and society has led to a variety of strategies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere and find places to store it. Many companies are hard at work to perfect methods of carbon capture, use, and storage. Franek Hasiuk, associate scientist at Kansas Geological Survey, said CCUS is the best technology available to reduce emissions produced by the global economy. Hasiuk is part of a team of scientists working on the Integrated Midcontinent Stacked Carbon Storage Hub, a project to investigate subsurface geology in southwest Kansas and southwest Nebraska and demonstrate the viability of injecting CO₂ into underground rock layers.

Added on 01 June, 2021

Explorer President’s Column By Rick Fritz

Vision: Time to Pay it Forward

It's been an amazing year… so many new opportunities while sprinting along the razor’s edge of existence! Early on, we did a lot of self-examination and strategic planning for a new AAPG. Part of the early short-term strategy was to cut and cut to bring the budget down to essential services and those programs that are sponsored by corporate or AAPG Foundation donations. At the same time, we began working on longer-term strategies. You have heard it said that “We are at our best when we prepare ourselves for the worst.” I would change that to say, “We are at our best when we prepare ourselves to avoid the worst!”

Added on 01 June, 2021

DL Abstract By Jennifer Wilcox

The Role of Carbon Capture in Meeting Net-Zero Carbon Goals

President Biden has laid out a bold and ambitious goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions in the United States by 2050. The pathway to that target includes cutting total greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and eliminating them entirely from the nation’s electricity sector by 2035. The Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management will play an important role in the transition to net-zero carbon emissions by reducing the environmental impacts of fossil energy production and use – and helping decarbonize other hard-to abate sectors.

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Added on 20 July, 2022

DL Abstract By Isabelle Moretti

The Natural H₂ Exploration Started: Why, Where and by Who?

Why H₂ is generated in subsurface? Which are the reactions and the promising geological setting? Example in countries where H₂ have already been found: Australia, Brazil. Kinetic reactions: i.e., Is the natural H₂ renewable? What we don't know yet about this resource and about the H₂ systems (generation/transport/accumulation). Overview of the current landscape (subsurface law, permitting, E&P activity)

Request a visit from Isabelle Moretti!

Added on 13 September, 2023

DL Abstract By Alex Simms

Interactions Between Ice Sheets and Relative Sea Levels: Lessons From Antarctica and NW Scotland

Local sea-level changes are not simply a function of global ocean volumes but also the interactions between the solid Earth, the Earth’s gravitational field and the loading and unloading of ice sheets. Contrasting behaviors between Antarctica and Scotland highlight how important the geologic structure beneath the former ice sheets is in determining the interactions between ice sheets and relative sea levels.

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Added on 21 July, 2022

DL Abstract By Kurt W. Rudolph

Tectonic Controls on Source Rock Deposition

While there are many habitats that are associated with the deposition of organic-rich marine and lacustrine source rocks, one important pathway is linked to the onset of increased basin subsidence associated with major tectonic events. A key aspect is that this subsidence is spatially variable, with the uplift of basin flanks contemporaneous with the foundering of the basin center, resulting in a steeper basin profile.

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Added on 14 September, 2023

DL Abstract By Lesli Wood

The Future of Geoscience: Your role in saving the Earth

The Earth is not a fragile place, but our place on the Earth is very fragile. Geoscience offers a pathway to understand how the Earth has evolved and the role of biological life forms in that evolution.

Request a visit from Lesli Wood!

Added on 19 August, 2024

DL Abstract By John Suppe

Probing What Makes the Crust Strong (or Weak): Insight from Boreholes, Earthquakes, Active Fault Systems, and Toy Models

For well over a century there have been conflicting indications of the strength of the crust and of faults and what controls them. Much of our ignorance comes quite naturally from the general inaccessibility of the crust to measurement--in contrast with our understanding of the atmosphere, which is much more accessible to observation as well as more rapidly changing. Crustal strength is best understood in deforming sedimentary basins where the petroleum industry has made great contributions, particularly in deforming petroleum basins because of the practical need to predict. In this talk we take a broad look at key issues in crustal strength and deformation and what we can learn from boreholes, earthquakes, active fault systems, and toy models.

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Added on 14 September, 2023

VG Abstract By Keith Gerdes

Tethyan Carbonates - Linking Tropical Seas and Crashing Plates to Some of the Largest Oil and Gas Fields in the World

The carbonate sequences that were deposited in the now exhumed Tethyan Ocean influence many aspects of our lives today, either by supplying the energy that warms our homes and the fuel that powers our cars or providing the stunning landscapes for both winter and summer vacations. They also represent some of the most intensely studied rock formations in the world and have provided geoscientists with a fascinating insight into the turbulent nature of 250 Million years of Earth’s history. By combining studies from the full range of geoscience disciplines this presentation will trace the development of these carbonate sequences from their initial formation on the margins of large ancient continental masses to their present day locations in and around the Greater Mediterranean and Near East region. The first order control on growth patterns and carbonate platform development by the regional plate-tectonic setting, underlying basin architecture and fluctuations in sea level will be illustrated. The organisms that contribute to sequence development will be revealed to be treasure troves of forensic information. Finally, these rock sequences will be shown to contain all the ingredients necessary to form and retain hydrocarbons and the manner in which major post-depositional tectonic events led to the formation of some of the largest hydrocarbon accumulations in the world will be demonstrated.

Request a visit from Keith Gerdes!

Added on 24 August, 2015

DL Abstract By Cynthia Liutkus-Pierce

Reconstructing a Late Pleistocene East African Paleolandscape using the Footprints of our Ancestors

Fossil hominin footprints offer a unique and immediate snapshot of our ancestors' lives, capturing their ecological, environmental, and behavioral contexts over remarkably short time scales. This presentation delves into the discovery and analysis of over 400 human footprints from Engare Sero, Tanzania, located on the southern shore of Lake Natron.

Request a visit from Cynthia Liutkus-Pierce!

Added on 19 August, 2024

VG Abstract By Juan I. Soto

Salt versus Shales in Continental Margins and Orogens

In comparison with the known boundary conditions that promote salt deformation and flow in sedimentary basins, the processes involved with the mobilization of clay-rich detrital sediments are far less well established. This talk will use seismic examples in different tectonic settings to document the variety of shale geometries that can be formed under brittle and ductile deformations.

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Added on 26 June, 2019

DL Abstract By Lesli Wood

The Shelf is a Dangerous Place: Surfing the Cretaceous Seaways

Engineering of wind farms, development of carbon sequestration projects in shelfal waters, the proliferation of communication cables that connect the world, all of these things suggest that it is time to re-examine what we know about shelf processes both updip-to-downdip and along shoreline, and the influence of shelf processes on erosion and transport of sediments.

Request a visit from Lesli Wood!

Added on 19 August, 2024

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