The Application of Geology in the Founding of Alberta's Petroleum Industry

Abstract

Oil seeps and bituminous (oil) sands were utilized by aboriginal people for ages and were known by early settlers of the region. Henry Marshall Tory appointed John Allan as the first Professor of Geology at the University of Alberta in 1912. As Tory envisioned, this appointment helped to define and expand the role of geology in the development of Alberta's natural resources. John Allan was also a founding member of the Scientific and Industrial Research Council of Alberta in 1921. As Director of the Research Council's geological survey, John Allan published many reports on Alberta's energy resources. In a talk on CKUA radio in 1927, he predicted the oil boom which began in 1947 with the discovery of the Leduc oil field. He was also one of Alberta's fist consulting geologists, who pioneered the use of core and drill cuttings and found petroleum for several clients. John Allan's students, Doug Layer and Charlie Stelck, were working for Imperial Oil when this company discovered this oil field. These geologists published papers on the geological history and origin of this oil field. Many more of John Allan's students discovered oil and gas fields in Alberta. Karl Clark was hired by Henry Tory with the advice of John Allan in 1920 to research the use of the bituminous sands at the Research Council of Alberta. Various pilot plants led in 1967 to the opening of the first commercially successful oil sands operation of Suncor. Barry Mellon did a M.Sc. study with Charlie Stelck on the age and origin of the McMurray Formation in 1955 and completed a Ph.D. at the Pennsylvania State University in 1959 on the Mannville and Blairmore groups, which include the bituminous sands. He joined the Alberta Geological Survey (at that time part of the Alberta Research Council) continuing his work on these deposits and became its Head from 1966 to 1973. In 1973 Mellon was appointed Deputy Minister of the Mines and Minerals Department by Premier Lougheed and was involved with negotiations with private interests to get Syncrude off the ground. The Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority (AOSTRA) was established in 1974 under the direction of Clem Bowman and Maurice Carrigy with a focus on in-situ bitumen recovery. This organization obtained government funding for an underground test facility for Steam-Assisted Gravity Drive (SAGD). The success of these experiments paved the way for the extensive application of this method in present day in-situ bitumen recovery in NE Alberta.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90259 ©2016 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, June 19-22, 2016