At present many companies have their own internal, proprietary petrophysical databases, but as far as we know there is no public database available to all geophysicists and other earth scientists. Further, much of the data and expertise in the oil/gas industry is in danger of being lost. We believe that it is vital to archive these data, as well as other published data, in a common, freely-available archive. We propose to build such an archive and distribute it over the WWW (as well as by CD-ROM), using as models other WEB-based geophysical/geological data servers.  We believe that Common Ground will be a substantial service to the earth science community.

Here are the salient features of the proposed archive:

• Freely accessible 24 hours a day via the WWW, or on CD-ROM
• Data donated by individuals, universities and companies as well as keyed/scanned from open literature with permission of publisher
• WWW interface to the database: find, view, download the data you want
• Useful to all earth scientists

Click here to read the text of a short proposal submitted to the SEG Foundation to support the development of Common Ground.  We are also soliciting funds and other support from a variety of other foundations, professional organizations and companies.

If you are interested in helping we need:

• People with expertise in petrophysical measurements to serve as volunteer advisors to the project.
• People with expertise in WEB-based data servers
• People willing to donate data (whether machine readable or paper)
• People willing to talk their companies/foundations into donating money to support the project.

• paying students to key/scan data and build the database records
• part-time secretarial support to coordinate getting permission for use of published data
• a modest amount of hardware:  a PC web server, scanner, CD-writer.