APPLIED GEOSCIENCE Box 1 - What’s in a Name: Applied Geoscience
and engineering is paved with concerns and challenges.
Geology is traditionally divided into three groups of disciplines: Physical geology (studies of Earth’s materials and processes studied by mineralogy, petrology, geomorphology, and structural geology/tectonics); historical geology (stratigraphy and paleontology); and applied geology, which AGI’s Glossary of Geology defines as “the application of various fields of geology to economic, engineering, water-supply, or environmental problems.” Since there are method- ological connections between geology, geochemistry and geophysics, it is better to group applied geology with applied geochemistry and applied (exploration geophysics) under the term “applied geoscience.” Various disciplines of this broad field are shown in the above figure. Certain social sciences also contribute to applied geoscience. Related terms previously used include the titles of Applied Earth Science by Daniel Turner (1969) and Geology and Man: An Introduction to Applied Earth Science by Janet Watson (1983).
Table 1
Table 1 - Priority fields in applied geoscience: This survey and critical needs were suggested by the American Geoscience Institute (AGI, 2020b).
and societies, and more importantly working out technological and policy procedures to reduce the atmospheric greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide and methane emissions from fossil fuels.
The Petroleum Industry and Geoscience
Similarly, about 30% of the respondents considered that the future of the petroleum industry and petroleum geoscience
www.aipg.org
Since the 1860s, the petroleum indus- try has increasingly shaped the modern world; oil and gas have provided abun- dant and affordable supplies for light- ing, heating, and transportation on land, the sea, and in the air, in addition to myriad petrochemicals and medicines. Since the 1910s, the petroleum industry has been closely associated with many universities. A large number of geol- ogy and petroleum engineering depart- ments were founded in universities close to petroleum basins such as those in Texas and Louisiana. The industry has traditionally hired a large number of geology, geophysics, and engineering graduates, and has funded numerous research consortia and graduate theses, aside from the research laboratories and institutes that major oil companies oper- ated themselves. Indeed, certain fields in geoscience, such as basin analysis, micropaleontology, sequence stratigra- phy, organic geochemistry, subsurface imaging, petrophysics, well logging, and seismic and other geophysical surveys, were spearheaded and financed by the petroleum industry. Without these con- tributions, our knowledge of subsurface geology and stratigraphic record would have been limited to bedrock outcrops which cover only 34% of the Earth’s land surface. Given this history, oil mar- ket crashes adversely affect geoscience departments, education, and research. For instance, following the oil market crash of 2014 undergraduate enroll- ments in geoscience programs in the USA fell by 5% for the 2015-2016 aca- demic year (Keane, 2017). The 2020 oil crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic has also caused serious concerns (Sorkhabi, 2020). The petroleum companies and oilfield service companies have cut back on expenditures and have laid off a large portion of their workforce, particularly geoscientists. Given the worldwide movements to combat the global warming the future growth of the petroleum industry is not clear: Will the industry evolve and reinvent itself, or will it give way to other energy, mineral and environmental industries; and if the latter, will these industries be geoscience-intensive and highly sup-
portive of research and education? These questions currently facing the geoscience community are at the heart of discussions on how to reform and develop geoscience education programs and research fields (Simmons et al., 2020).
In order for the petroleum industry to re-invent itself, it has to address two critical areas – environmental sustain- ability, and reducing exploration and production (E&P) costs per barrel of oil. Science and technology will play key roles in achieving these targets.
Jul.Aug.Sep 2021 • TPG 57
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