The 1901 discovery of oil at Spindletop, Beaumont, Texas, not only changed the oil industry for ever; the blowout had such a large impact that the world would never be the same again. Geoscientists and engineers should also remember that the Lucas discovery only became reality because of innovative geological ideas and novel engineering solutions.

To safeguard their geological heritage, China has established a network of National Geoparks; important geological sites that provide essential information for understanding the Earth’s processes and evolution.

One of the most spectacular oil discoveries ever occurred in 1901. On a brisk January morning, the drillers hit pay 308m below the surface of a salt-induced hill. Oil in huge quantities was forced upwards and caused what become known as the Lucas gusher.

The resources in the North Sea created the possibilities. People and their knowledge created the technology. Anders Farestveit created Geco. For posterity, he will be the only world champion in seismic acquisition.

When visiting the dolomites of northern italy, you can combine hiking, biking and climbing with scenery dominated by towering pinnacles and plateaus. This spectacular late Cenozoic mountain range, home to many well known ski resorts, consists of carbonate rocks deposited in the vast tethys Sea in the triassic, more than 200 million years ago.

Dr. Moujahed al-Husseini is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Middle East Petroleum Geosciences, Geoarabia, and for many years was involved with the organisation of the important GEO oil industry conference, held every two years in Bahrain. We met up with him to hear his views on the value of this meeting to the development of the Middle East oil industry.

Since announcing that it had become self-sufficient in oil in 2006, Brazil has continued to enjoy exploration success, with a number of exciting finds being announced in the last year, particularly in the deepwater Santos Basin.

The announcement of a new licensing round in Colombia emphasises how the South American country is moving out of the shadow of violence and into a new era of stability and growth. Billions of barrels of oil may be found according to optimistic geologists.

The Russian sector of the Chukchi Sea is a frontier exploration province with little seismic data and no wells. Despite this lack of crucial geological information, regional correlations with the American sector indicate that the potential of this vast region may be substantial.

As the search for hydrocarbons moves into increasingly unwelcoming and difficult terrain, a niche market in leading oil and service companies safely through the dangers of a hostile environment has developed.

In 1828, Johann Gauss developed his theorema egregium, latin for remarkable, to deal with curvature in 3-dimensional space. Now, through the use of volumetric curvature attributes, geoscientists apply this remarkable tool to seismic interpretation without the need of a picked horizon.

The innovative Virtual Seismic Atlas has now been launched. This is a major contribution to teaching, training as well as research – and paves the way for further progress in the geosciences.

Salt structures come in every possible shape and stretch our imagination. This means difficulties in seismic imaging, but it also means that the innovative explorationist can look for spectacular traps.

Seismic imaging is considered key to reducing risk and cost in exploratory as well as development drilling. Seismic acquisition geometry impacts the seismic image, so in this article we show how advances in imaging deepwater subsalt plays in the deep water Gulf of Mexico is a result of the way the industry has embraced the wide azimuth streamer survey technique.