UGS Petroleum Geologists in London

The oldest and most prestigious geological society in the world, The Geological Society (of London), invited Tom Chidsey and Michael Vanden Berg to present papers at a global symposium on a newly discovered major oil potential that occurs all around the world.  Microbial carbonates are a distinctive type of reservoir rock that until recently was unrecognized in terms of oil potential.  Several new oil fields have been discovered in various areas of the world and some are already producing. Chidsey and Vanden Berg researched both modern (where microbial carbonates are forming today in Great Salt Lake) and ancient (the roughly 54 million-year-old Green River Formation) analogs.  They found microbial rocks in Utah (the Green River Formation), particularly in the Uinta Basin.  Their presentations will make oil companies aware of the vast new oil potential in Utah.

Tom Chidsey and Mike Vanden Berg in front of the “map that changed the world”, William Smith’s geologic map of Great Britain, published in 1815. Displayed at the Geological Society of London, this was the first geologic map ever created.