The History Behind Internet Geology

I have been asked many times how I became involved in the petroleum geology of the Newly Independent States of the Former Soviet Union. It was late in 1957 or early 1958 when the Soviets hung that sputnik up in the sky, and we realized that we had a problem on our hands. We knew very little of the geological activity of the Soviets and realized that their literature certainly should be examined. First Russian had to be learned, which was somewhat easier for me because I knew German and Latin, the grammar of which was similar to that of Russian. But learning the words was very difficult because they are so different. I decided to publish an English translation of the Russian journal "Geologiya Nefti i Gaza" (Geology of Oil and Gas). This became Petroleum Geology, published first in the summer of 1958. Since this was in the middle of the Cold War, my attitude toward the Russians was anything but frieldly. I considered this effort to be in our national interest.

After some twelve years I changed from a translation of just a single journal to publishing digests of articles from a broad spectrum of journals. In June of 1959 I joined the United States Geological Survey to edit Geophysical Abstracts, but continued publishing Petroleum Geology on a non-profit basis. As the years passed by, my feeling toward the Russians softened. I thought to myself how could a people be all bad if they had the word "ptisa" for "bird" and "deti" for "children", and everyone had a nick name. I grew to respect their science and their scientists. I got to know several of their outstanding geologists, and we became frields.

In about 1990 the entire situation changed. Western petroleum companies became very interested in the Soviet Union. More than fifty companies bought the back issues of Petroleum Geology. Circulation of the journal went up. From this peak there set in a steady decline in interest in the geology of this vast region - a sixth of the land surface of the Earth. I realized that the journal went to libraries, where it was logged in, placed of a shelf, and accessed only when someone was searching for a particular subject. As I prepared the digests for the successive issues I became ever more aware that the information that I was reviewing was extremenly important and should not be buried on library shelves.

It was last May that I decided to write short essays on various subjects and publish them as News Letters of Internet Geology. I draw the information from articles published in Petroleum Geology, U.S.G.S. Open-File Reports and Circulars that I and others have written, basin studies I have synthesized as a consultant, and other published literature.

Perhaps you have seen the fold-out poster on Earth Science Week published recently by the American Geological Institute and the Canadian Geoscience Council. At the center of this display is a globe with a cut-away showing the interior of the Earth. To the west is North America as far as the Rockies. To the east is the flat West Siberian Lowland, East Siberia, and the Northeast Arctic Shelf of Russia. These areas of Russia are not only highly favorable for new petroleum discoveries, but more important to us is the basic geology that is appearing in the Russian language literature. This information cannot be ignored. This is the reason for Internet Geology. Internet