Category:Reflection seismics

Open Source Geophysical Database

I quiet agree with Jimmy Wales that there should be no proprietary information. This is in real opposition to my former job, being a geophysical data broker and sales engineer. As most of you know, there likely exists millions of miles of older 2D and 3D reflection seismic data. Much of this will not be used again for petroleum exploration purposes. This does not mean that it has no scientific value. Quite to the contrary, it is a scientific gold mine. Any geoscientist who is looking at structural geology, sedimentology, geothermal or mineral exploration science is now blindsided because many of these serious investigators can not get access to this data for these reasons, first is not having information about it's existence, how it can be useful for them (education) and lastly, cost. This has to be among the principal areas of data mining available to geoscientists today, if, in fact it could be accessed today.

This data is the property of exploration companies and geophysical contractors which they have stored, and some cases have archived by GIS. There is no way I can estimate it's value to these private holders, and I can not estimate it's potential value to general geoscience other than to say it will be of the magnitude of the size of the Universe, which is to say no one can imagine how large it will be, too. These companies should have some way to "de-classify" some of this data and make it available to geoscience at no cost or much-reduced cost basis. On the basis of all the tax breaks and subsidies these exploration companies got from the government (which really means we the people), as a moral consideration, they should be the leaders for this effort to open source this data and as a good start, Wikimedia Commons is a good beginning. Mike Laviolette