Explorer Historical Highlights

In the summer of 1865, Thomas Bard arrived in Ventura County, Calif., to begin exploration drilling on properties owned by his uncle, Thomas Scott, in the area of Sulphur Mountain. Scott had made a fortune investing in Pennsylvania railroads in the 1850s and in Titusville oil fields in the early 1860s. Scott undertook petroleum exploration in California on the basis of sensational reports of the oil potential there published by Yale professor Benjamin Silliman in 1864. Writing to Scott about the Sulphur Mountain area, Silliman said, 'Its great value is in its almost fabulous wealth in the best of oil.'

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

When asked what they know about Livermore, Calif., most people think of the nuclear weapons laboratory with the largest lasers and computers, and some think of the oldest wine region in the state, but no one thinks of it as an oil producing region. Yet Livermore was the site of one of the earliest oil wells in California and still has a small, declining oil field just east of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

For the second time since 2017, the University of Houston has won the coveted Imperial Barrel Award, an annual AAPG-sponsored prospective basin evaluation competition for geoscience graduate students from universities around the world.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Laura Branch teaches high school science courses and is one of only a few credentialed Earth science teachers in Santa Barbara County and has the only upper-level high school geology class in the county. As a geoscience instructor, Branch is able to teach her students about the petroleum system and the seepage of oil and heavy oil in the coastal area.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Foundation Update

The AAPG Foundation is proud to announce the recipient of the 2019 Teacher of the Year award, Laura Branch. Branch teaches AP environmental science, geology and general science classes at Ernest Righetti High School in Santa Maria.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Correlator Article

Richard “Rick” Behl provides a glimpse of the field trips and program included in the 2019 Pacific Section AAPG Conference.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

With a new batch of freshman lawmakers in Congress, there has been increasing attention on a proposed “Green New Deal” to aggressively tackle climate change, among other issues. But how feasible is it?

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

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