|
|
In 1997 Paul Bathurst and Mark Groves Gidney, of the consultancy Exploration Geosciences Limited, were working in western Canada, using an atlas of hydrocarbon geology which they found invaluable in their consulting work.
They sought out initial sponsorship, and by 1998 had sufficient interest and commitment from industry for the Millennium Atlas Company Ltd. to be set up. This is a single purpose company owned jointly by the Geological Society of London, the Norwegian Petroleum Society and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland and was set up to complete the Millennium Atlas and close down without a profit or a loss. Dr. Andrew Armour was invited to be Chairman of the company.
35 oil companies eventually became full sponsors and data was provided by many sources, including oil companies, seismic companies, consultancies and academic institutions. Governments did not provide data, but gave the project full backing and encouraged all the organisations to be involved. EGL undertook project management with Paul Bathurst as Project Manager and the British Geological Survey agreed to edit the Atlas. Book production was undertaken by Lovell Johns Ltd. A steering committee representing the three nations was set up and effectively managed the project through to completion.
The Atlas describes the petroleum geology of the central and northern North Sea from 55°20N to 62°N and, since all relevant countries were involved, it successfully crosses the national boundaries, emphasising the geological oneness of the North Sea basin. It was written by regional experts, with small groups of companies or individuals responsible for writing selected chapters and producing very high quality illustrations. They were provided with a broad outline framework and each chapter then underwent external refereeing and intensive editing. Organised in twenty chapters, the tectonic evolution, basin history and structural framework of each region are covered, as are the main stratigraphic intervals, from the Sub-Devonian to the Holocene times. The fluid contents of the rocks are dealt with in two chapters covering petroleum generation/migration and formation waters and hydrodynamics. In addition, the history of exploration and licensing in the basin is discussed, together with a summary of resource assessments. In all more than 100 authors and contributors, together with over 60 referees from industry, academia and government departments were involved, the large majority offering their services free of charge. To help maintain consistency a number of workshops were held with all the authors attending.
The Millennium Atlas was finally published to great acclaim in 2003. It is in A2 format in full colour and contains over 400 pages, nearly 500 illustrations and 1,600 references, and is also available on CD-Rom. It costs £149 in book format and £199 if the digital version is included, with discounts for members of PESGB, EAGE, the Norwegian Petroleum Society, the Danish Geological Society and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. These are exceptionally reasonable costs for a publication of this size and significance, particularly since it is already considered to be the seminal information source for any new entrant into the North Sea. It can be obtained from the geological Society Publishing House website online bookshop at www.geolsoc.org.uk
The success of the Millennium Atlas and the inspirational effect it has had has been further confirmed through plans to produce a new Atlas covering the Southern Permian Basin and involving the UK, Holland, Germany, Poland, Belgium and Denmark. Readers may have to wait until 2008 for this new work.
Updated: 30.04.2007 09:00 by Jane Whaley
GeoPublishing, c/o NGU 7491-TRONDHEIM, NORWAY +47 73904090 / +47 90563595
