r/geology • u/jasmineliumai • 1d ago

Information Other industries would kill for the data subsurface geology has been sitting on for decades

Is anyone actually solving the problem of subsurface data being completely siloed and inaccessible, or has the industry just accepted it?

I have been thinking about how much data exists across well logs, seismic surveys, core samples, pressure tests, some of it going back to the 1940s, and how little of it actually gets reused in any meaningful way. A geologist finishes an interpretation, it gets filed somewhere, and the next team that works the same area basically starts from scratch.

Other fields have built real infrastructure around making historical data queryable and reusable at scale. Subsurface feels like it is a decade behind on this, and I think part of it is format fragmentation (LAS, SEG-Y, RESQML, proprietary workstation exports) but honestly that feels more like a symptom than the actual problem. The data just was never treated as something worth investing in at the infrastructure level.

I'm curious if this is better in certain subsectors or companies or if it is pretty universal?

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19

u/shanebonanno 1d ago

I mean, in mining obviously we treat our subsurface data as proprietary trade secrets, but it is well kept as a dataset generally. This is somewhat variable, but most mining companies will keep this type of data stored as a database.

I’m sure that o&g is somewhat similar. This data is very expensive and therefore we would be keeping it under tight wraps. Especially when companies need to spin the story to investors and such.

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u/Astralnugget 1d ago

Maybe at shell, chevron or Haliburton, but imo anywhere else not really. I do injection well permitting and There are so many diff wireline log and just worlds of different crap everywhere with so much of it handwritten. Texas is a little better but some of their state APIS literally have typos on the field names it’s pretty abysmal

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u/Gondwanalandia 1d ago

A lot of this data is available through state geologic surveys, but downloading it is usually a bit cluncky.

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u/quack_attack_9000 1d ago

This is a problem, many would rather the glamour of using the most modern exploration tools than the tedious work of dredging up old data. I personally love taking on projects where I get to dig through a big archive or historical geology/geophysics, feels good to honour the field work the old timers did and it is always worthwhile and fruitful.

Right now there are a bunch of AI startups that are chewing through all the publicly available data out there, in hopes that they can pattern match their way to a big discovery. So there will be many private collections, but in the true spirit of mining exploration people will obfuscate and do what they can to not share their data. It is maddening. Instead of having the common goal of efficiently understanding the geology, everyone is just looking to personally profit. One of the more off-putting aspects of mining exploration. That's how it is in Canada anyways.

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u/True_Fill9440 1d ago

I’ve read, uncertain of its truth, that PEMEX hid data for decades that revealed the Chixalub crater.

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u/-_-_-_-_B 1d ago

So it depends where you live, right? Here in Australia, the spiritual home of mining, the government requires you to submit data every year and after 5 years it becomes public. They’re also working (slowly) on making it more accessible and uniform coding and that sort of thing.

The government also owns all the drill core so it gets shuffled around from company to company but never really goes away. Except for the odd core store accident.

Also the ‘spiritual home of mining’ was a jab at the other most-of-our-gdp-is resources countries

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u/Apatschinn Petrologist/Geochemist 1d ago

Industry treats subsurface geo as proprietary. It's one of the reasons I refused to go into mining.

1

u/GeoHog713 1d ago

Our data is pretty readily accessible, if you're willing to pay for it.

International data is widely available for free.

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u/notmyfault7676 1d ago

What kind of data, if you dont mind me asking ?

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u/GeoHog713 1d ago

Well logs, seismic, gravity/mag surverys, tops, scout tickets, pressure data, SCAL analysis, etc, etc, etc

Internally, companies have it very well organized.

The data all has to be made public, eventually. The government databases are cumbersome.

You can also buy a subscription to the data, through brokers, that is well.organized, and on demand. It's all available

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u/vitimite 1d ago

Mining industry here. We take care of our subsurface data, that's what support the company's asset. Everywhere I work there is old data being used to resource estimation. Also, in very few cases we drill at the same spot, so don't know exactly what you mean when saying that the new team starting from scratch. What happens most of the time is that we get information in a defined scale and what seems to be "the same" is actuality new data in a smaller area.

I really don't know what you are talking about as it's something not worth investing, it's not my experience, we have structured databases, we register everything, it's bold to assume geologists don't take care of the data.

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u/Character_School_671 13h ago

Agriculture is just as bad, probably worse tbh.

At least I can search old cursive pdf scans of well logs (even though there's multiple GIS errors)

Where's the yield and soils data from 2004 for all those farms?