Bob Slamal Digital Type Logs Project Introduction

Work is partially supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) under Grant Number DE-FE0002056.

The development of a digital well log standard LAS in the 1990’s, digital acquisition by all Kansas logging companies in late 2000’s, and accommodation and use of digital logs in surface mapping software has encouraged increasing use of digital well logs. This has been accompanied by the new technology driven developments in the oil and gas industry driven by price and importantly, ideas on where remaining petroleum resides, conventional and unconventional. The ideas are founded upon the currency of reliable stratigraphic formation tops to frame the subsurface analyses. Reference stratigraphic type well logs that are digital and linked with peer reviewed stratigraphic datums will serve as a starting point that will aid in further advancing our Geoscience for future. The existing Kansas Type Logs published in 1960s by the Kansas Geological Society have served the community extremely well, created by a committee of volunteers. A new digital version of the type logs, the Bob Slamal Digital Type Logs Project, builds on this heritage and is dedicated to an untiring stratigrapher and subsurface geologist who exemplified the enthusiasm of an oil finder and a scientist seeking answers to important stratigraphic problems up to the day he lost his life in a tragic car accident on a snowy Saturday morning on the way to the society library.

The Bob Slamal Digital Type Logs Project is first and foremost, an effort of an expert community of geologists who are dedicating their time and knowledge to establish a consistent, detailed subsurface stratigraphic framework across Kansas. No one geologist has detailed knowledge and extensive experience across the entire state. This is why we seek the assistance of Society members in the correlation of the stratigraphic framework, in a members area of expertise. To contribute to the project all you need is the desire to help and a computer with an internet connection. The online application is easy to use and contains "workflow" assistance and extensive help files.

The project is a joint effort between the Kansas Geological Society and the Kansas Geological Survey utilizing membership of the Society and the programming talents of John Victorine, of the Kansas Geological Survey, who has developed the online Java application to manage and display the digital logs and stratigraphic data. John Doveton has been instrumental in advancing knowledge and use of digital well logs from the efforts in the 1990’s to develop a "Kansas Virtual Geology" and a more recently "Stratigraphic GIS", to make the Kansas subsurface visible through imaging of digital logs, facilitating ties between surface exposures and the subsurface.

Society member Paul Gerlach has worked with Larry Nicholson and Tom Hansen to development the initial "seed" correlations under DOE-NETL Contract DE-FE0002056, where digital type logs have been defined, digitized, and correlated to support mapping and petrophysical analysis in the evaluation of carbon storage potential of southern Kansas. Paul is managing this effort to deliver a compiled CD set of type wells for the Society and inclusion of logs among other type wells that will be accessible on the DOE-supported interactive oil and gas project mapper soon available through the Kansas Geological Survey.

This version of the Bob Slamal Digital Type Logs Project is constructed to facilitate future updates anticipating that new research and stratigraphic concepts will continue to evolve as science and technology advance. The collective stratigraphic information will enable elevation of informal stratigraphy to formal status following protocol established by the Kansas Geological Survey Stratigraphic Nomenclature Committee.

Lynn Watney, DOE project Joint PI with Jason Rush, Kansas Geological Survey, 14 December 2012

The URL for this page is http://www.kgs.ku.edu/PRS/Ozark/TYPE_LOG/index.html