In the immortal words of Monty Python, I choose to always look on the bright side of life. As a geologist, some days are harder than others, especially recently. News of geoscience departments at universities around the world shuttering, career scientists at government agencies losing their jobs, federal grant money in limbo and the overall uncertainty of where the economy is headed has many people concerned.
As an industry, we have seen our ups and downs over many decades. I believe the challenges we face today are another example of our need to adapt and survive within the uncertainty. I am reminded of a famous quote about facing adversity:
“I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.” – John D. Rockefeller
Even in the face of ambiguity, opportunities are waiting to be discovered. Investment in the subsurface starts with data, which can be resource-intensive and expensive to collect and analyze. As such, access to publicly available data and research from institutions like state geological surveys, the U.S. Geological Survey and Department of Energy are critical to our field. Publicly available datasets are a bright spot in gloomy times.
New Energy Opportunities
In the early exploration days of the Marcellus, the Department of Energy’s Eastern Gas Shales Project was a heavily referenced and utilized resource. The EGSP, initiated in 1976, was a research project dedicated to cracking the code of shale gas production. The foundational research derived from EGSP allowed industry and research geologists to make enormous strides in production from shales.
Today, the focus is still on new energy opportunities. For those interested in energy minerals, there is plenty of encouraging news in the headlines. Public datasets focused on geothermal, critical minerals, helium and hydrogen are available and can be valuable assets to explore for these resources.
Exploration for helium and for hydrogen are also seeing an uptick in investment. Finding new opportunities and spurring investment in these energy resources still requires access to related datasets and research. Thankfully, the federal government and state geological surveys have made this possible.
With the technical advancements and investment in enhanced geothermal systems, electricity generation at commercial-scale output is closer than ever. Promising results are coming out of the Department of Energy’s Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy – or FORGE – site in Utah, and a recent press release by Fervo Energy indicates success in expanding capacity at their Cape Station project. Data and research results from FORGE are available on DOE’s Geothermal Data Repository web page.
For critical minerals, tariffs imposed on incoming foreign goods may impact the United States’ future supply chain. As of the writing of this article, China imposed export restrictions on rare earth elements crucial for the defense, energy and automotive industries including samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium.
Government funded initiatives, like the USGS’s Earth Mapping Resources Initiative and the Department of Energy’s Carbon Ore, Rare Earth and Critical Minerals allow geologists to investigate the critical mineral content of overlooked sources and/or waste materials. Promising domestic sources within sedimentary rocks include shales (both organic-rich and clay-rich), phosphate-rich rocks and coal-related materials including paleosols (underclays) and mine waste. Datasets from these and previous projects are publicly available and frequent updates are made to add new data, such as those available on the USGS’ Mineral Resources Program web site. In addition, core collections housed at state geological surveys and the USGS are great resources to study for additional geologic context related to critical minerals. These datasets are great ways to explore for new opportunities in domestic critical mineral resources.
In the private sector, the hunt for helium and geologic hydrogen is very active. The annual Rocky Mountain Association of Geologist’s North American Helium and Hydrogen Conference, held this past April, featured talks and keynote addresses from researchers and exploration companies. Many efforts to explore for these gases started with access to publicly available databases, including the historical dataset collected by the now defunct U.S. Bureau of Mines and those curated by the USGS and state geological surveys.
IMAGE Events
Not only is access to data important, but hearing the experiences from those who have been early explorers of these resources is always a great learning experience. For the upcoming 2025 AAPG-SEG IMAGE conference, there will be many great talks related to exploring for critical minerals and geologic hydrogen, plus information from geothermal research including the FORGE project. An amazing line-up of speakers has been assembled for the Energy Minerals Division-sponsored special session titled, “Geology and Geochemistry of Brine Mining Produced Water.” The range of talks will provide an assessment of the geology, geochemistry and exploration mindsets used to map and understand sedimentary systems hosting critical minerals. I hope to see you in person Aug. 25-28 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston.
Since this is my last EXPLORER column as EMD president, I would like to express my gratitude for the opportunity to share my perspectives with the AAPG community related to the ever-changing world of energy minerals. The members of our group are very excited about the work that is being done and the opportunities that are coming in this space. At the end of the day, we can’t do our job without publicly available datasets and the research made available by others. With that, I hope y’all (“yinz” for all the Pittsburghers out there) keep looking on the bright side of life!