by Lee C. Gerhard,

Director and State Geologist

. . .we want to make the public aware of geologic information and how it can be used

In this inaugural issue of The Geologic Record, the Kansas Geological Survey announces its new Geology Extension program. For some years we have searched for a new way to communicate our research results to the public, educators, decision-makers, and our scientific colleagues. The Geology Extension program answers that need.

The Geology Extension program is organized within Assistant Director Rex Buchanan’s Publications and Public Affairs group. Bob Sawin has been selected to develop a program of informal publications, talks, field experiences, and coordination with museums and other public-outreach and science-education organizations. We hope to demonstrate the significance of geological resources to our way of life and economy, and explain how they occur and can best be managed.

Since it was founded in 1889, the Survey has made information available to the public. With this new program, we want to do more than provide data—we want to make the public aware of geologic information and how it can be used.

Our new program, Geology Extension, is the natural outgrowth of the research we conduct about the state’s geology and earth resources. We want the public to use our information and our resources.

Researchers from the Kansas Geological Survey have received a $3.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to demonstrate new ways of extending the life of the state’s oil fields. The four-year project is a cooperative effort between Survey and KU researchers and Ritchie Exploration, Inc., an independent Kansas oil and gas operator headquartered in Wichita. The grant was made through KU’s Energy Research Center to the Kansas Geological Survey and the Tertiary Oil Recovery Project.

According to Tim Carr, chief of the Survey’s petroleum research section, the grant’s objective is to demonstrate new approaches and technology to extend production from the mature oil fields of Kansas. “Without new techniques for producing additional oil, many of the state’s 6,000 oil fields might become uneconomic and be abandoned within the next five years,” said Carr.

The study will focus on the Schaben field in Ness County in west-central Kansas. The Schaben field, discovered in 1963, has produced more than 8.2 million barrels of oil. The KU geologists and engineers, in cooperation with Ritchie Exploration, plan to build a computerized model of the geology of the field and its oil-producing formations. That model will help scientists better estimate the remaining reserves and stimulate future production based on different scenarios, such as increased drilling or different oil-recovery technologies.

Researchers also plan to evaluate the efficiency of various advanced oil-recovery techniques—including targeted infill drilling and deepening of existing wells. “With conventional recovery practices, older Kansas fields are playing out,” said Carr. “As the major oil companies become less active in Kansas, smaller independent producers become more and more important. These producers need assistance in developing new geologic information and new, low-cost technologies they can use to get a few more barrels of oil a day out of marginal wells to keep them producing a lot longer.”

Results from the Schaben field study will demonstrate the economic viability of applying similar advanced oil-recovery techniques to other Kansas reservoirs. “Sixty percent of the oil produced in Kansas comes from formations very similar to these,” said Carr. “Improved production here will have applicability across the state.”