PREPARATION OF NORTHERN MID-CONTINENT PETROLEUM ATLAS

Report covers the fifth year of the Digital Petroleum Atlas (DPA) Project. To the present day, the DPA remains a long-term effort to develop new methodologies for efficient and timely access to the latest petroleum data and technology for the domestic oil and gas industry, research organizations and local governmental units. The DPA is an evolving approach to generating and publishing petroleum reservoir, field, play and basin studies. Atlas products are integrated with the Kansas Geological Survey web site and are available for every field in Kansas (6,395 fields in Kansas), anywhere in the world using a standard point-and-click world-wide-web interface (http://www.kgs.ku.edu/PRS/petroIndex.html). In order to provide efficient transfer of the technology for client-defined solutions, all information and technology in the DPA can be accessed, manipulated and downloaded. The DPA increases and improves online access from data through to ''final publication''. Until recently the petroleum atlas circulated like all scholarly information, through personal exchanges, subscriptions, and libraries. Today, digital scientific information is becoming the norm. The result--a dramatic increase in the international and disciplinary scope of information exchange in the petroleum industry. Digital communication has made traditional collaborative activity more informal, intimate, instantaneous, and continuous. At the present the DPA provides worldwide access to constantly increasing data and interpreted information. For example, data from each of over 300,000 oil and gas wells in Kansas are being accessed online for projects in locations from Chanute, Kansas, to Houston, Texas, to Berlin, Germany. Programs developed through the DPA provide oil and gas operators and the public tools to make exploration and development decisions using production data, interpreted well logs, and real-time mapped petroleum information. The DPA provides online access to digital versions of published bulletins, maps, and reports. Through the DPA, we provide online tools that permit colleagues and customers to better query, interpret, map, and display the latest information and research results in earth science databases that could be scattered anywhere in the world. These ''published''products are living, created on demand, customized to best address a specific natural resource question, and access data that is continuously updated and improved. The DPA has significantly altered the relationship between research results, data access, the transfer of technology, and our relationship with our clients. The fifth year of the project moved forward to expand the development and integration of relational databases into the DPA. The result is that most of the pages in the DPA are generated on demand using online clients. Previously completed products, such as field and basin studies, are automatically updated with the latest production and well data. Raster images such has completion reports are scanned and uploaded into relational databases and can be used for efficient construction of larger scale studies. Content of the DPA has increased to cover every field in Kansas. The DPA Project continues to provide improved access to a ''published''product and ongoing technology transfer activity. The DPA is widely used by oil and gas producers and other groups interested in natural resources.

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