The American whale oil industry: A look back to the future of the American petroleum industry?

The American whaling industry rose from humble beginnings off Long island to become an international giant. In its peak year, 1846, 735 ships and 70,000 people served the industry. As whale stocks and reserves decreased, whalers were forced to go farther and farther from their New England home ports. Voyages became longer, and risks on required return-on-investment became higher. The easy money of Atlantic and Pacific whaling was no more: the only remaining profitable ventures were to Arctic and Antarctic waters. Many ships returned empty, if at all. in 1871, most of the Arctic whaling fleet was crushed by early winter ice and lost. This calamity, in conjunction with the long-term diminishing whale stocks, the diversion of investment capital to more profitable ventures, and the discovery, development, and refinement of abundant petroleum crude oil, struck the death blow to the American whaling industry. By 1890, only 200 whaling vessels were at work, and by 1971, no American commercial whaling ship sailed the world's oceans.It is apparent that no single event caused the final, rapid decline. However, a single calamity, in an already stressed industry, that was self-insured and commercially interlinked, precipitated the end. Today's American petroleum industry, although adopting some principles of the American whaling industry, also has embraced other activities such as work process reengineering and customer alliances, which may preempt, or postpone, a similar catastrophic demise.     

Some Aspects of Resource Uncertainty and Their Economic Consequences in Assessment of the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Natural Resources Research - Exploration ventures in frontier areas have high risks. Before committing to them, firms prepare regional resource assessments to evaluate the potential payoffs. With...     

非线性支持向量机在油气预测中的应用

油气预测的传统方法通常是基于经验风险最小化准则,但在有限样本情况下,预测效果并不理想.研究引入基于结构化风险最小化准则的非线性支持向量机方法,通过对推广误差界的最小化达到最大的泛化能力和全局最优,时于小样本数据,该方法具有可靠的预测能力.在对四川观音场构造面新统上部碳酸盐岩储层数据处理中.通过实例试算,结果表明该方法有效可靠,预测精度高,与已知结果吻合较好.     

Design and implementation of a 3D ocean virtual reality and visualization engine

In this study,a 3D virtual reality and visualization engine for rendering the ocean,named VV-Ocean,is designed for marine applications.The design goals of VV-Ocean aim at high fidelity simulation of ocean environment,visualization of massive and multidimensional marine data,and imitation of marine lives.VV-Ocean is composed of five modules,i.e.memory management module,resources management module,scene management module,rendering process management module and interaction management module.There are three core functions in VV-Ocean:reconstructing vivid virtual ocean scenes,visualizing real data dynamically in real time,imitating and simulating marine lives intuitively.Based on VV-Ocean,we establish a sea-land integration platform which can reproduce drifting and diffusion processes of oil spilling from sea bottom to surface.Environment factors such as ocean current and wind field have been considered in this simulation.On this platform oil spilling process can be abstracted as movements of abundant oil particles.The result shows that oil particles blend with water well and the platform meets the requirement for real-time and interactive rendering.VV-Ocean can be widely used in ocean applications such as demonstrating marine operations,facilitating maritime communications,developing ocean games,reducing marine hazards,forecasting the weather over oceans,serving marine tourism,and so on.Finally,further technological improvements of VV-Ocean are discussed.     

塔中4号油藏渗透率分布的非均质性及渗流方向研究

研究油藏内部油水渗流方向时,主要考虑渗透率影响,引入两个水平方向渗透率比、水平与垂向渗透率比参数来分析。前者反映样品所在储层平面上两个水平方向渗流能力的差异,后者反映样品所在储层水平与垂向渗流能力的差异,并经小柱样测试和全岩心测试两种方法确定两个参数。通过对塔中4号油藏CⅠ油组9口井2306个样品两种渗透率比值分布直方图分析,研究了CⅠ油组渗透率的非均质性及其渗流方向:CI油组储层在水平方向的渗流能力有很大差异,具有明显的方向性。储层垂向渗流能力明显小于水平方向的渗流能力。     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this article: Aerial Photography and Remote Sensing Aerial photography and image interpretation for Resource Management . DAVID P. PAINE . Analytical Models and Techniques Spatial Processes Models and Applications A. D. CLIFF AND J. K. ORD Quantitative and Statistical Approaches to Geography: A Practical Manual JOHN A. MATTHEWS . Cartography and Maps Map Data Processing . HERBERT FREEMAN AND GOFFREDO G. PIERONI , eds. Computer-assisted Cartography: Principles and Prospects, 1982 . MARK S. MONMONIER . Cultural Navajo Architecture: Forms, History, Distributions . STEPHEN C. JETT AND VIRGINIA E . SPENCER . Rational Landscapes and Humanistic Geography . EDWARD RELPH . Economic The Structure and Control of a State Economy . W. L. L'ESPERANCE . Economic Geography . JAMES O. WHEELER AND PETER O. MULLER . The Myth of the Family Farm: Agribusiness Dominance of U.S. Agriculture . INGOLF VOCELER . Libya: The Experience of Oil . J. A. ALLEN . Geography of Public Finance, Welfare Under Fiscal Federalism and local Government Finance . ROBERT BENNETT . Environmental Management, Resources, and Systems Mountains and Man . LARRY W. PRICE . Environmental Geology . DONALD R. COATES . An Introduction to Environmental Systems . G. H. DURY . The Environment: Chinese and American Views . Edited by LAURENCE J. C. MA AND ALLEN G. NOBLE . Land Use in America . RICHARD H. JACKSON . Medical Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Medical Geography . MELINDA S. MEADE (ed.). Philosophy and Geographic Thought Birds in Egg/Eggs in Bird . GUNNAR OLSSON . PhysicaI Climatology: Selected Applications . J. E. OLIVER . Geomorphological Techniques . ANDREW GOUDIE (ed.). Political Politics, Geography and Behaviour . RICHARD MUIR AND RONAN PADDISON . The State of the World Atlas . MICHAEL KIDRON AND RONALD SECAL . Population The Population of the South . DUDLEY L. POSTON , JR . AND ROBERT H. WELLER , eds. Regional Latin America: Economic Development and Regional Differentiation . ARTHUR MORRIS . Developing the Amazon . EMILIO F. MORAN . Western Europe: A Systematic Human Geography . BRIAN W. ILBERY . Settlement Systems in Sparsely Settled Regions: The United States and Australia . RICHARD E. LONSDALEAND JOHN H. HOLMES , eds. African Perspectives: The Economic Geography of Nine African States . HARM DE BUJ AND ESMOND MARTIN , eds. Rural Nonmetropolitan America in Transition . AMOS H. HAWLEY AND SARA MILLS MAZIE , eds. Social Crime and Environment . R. NORMAN DAVIDSON . The Ghetto: Readings with Interpretations . JOE T. DARDEN , ed. Urban Urban Problems and Planning in the Developed World . MICHAEL PACIONE (ed.) Problems and Planning in Third World Cities . Edited by MICHAEL PACIONE . The City in West Europe . D. BURTENSHAW , M. BATEMAN , AND C. J. ASHWORTH .     

中国稠油油田开发趋向

我国稠油资源非常丰富,在东部和西部几个大油区均有分布,而且储量很大。近年来由于热采等先进技术的应用,使稠油开采得以发展,呈现出良好的前景。     

岩石脆性预测在吉木萨尔凹陷致密油勘探中的应用

岩石的脆性是非常规油气藏勘探开发中需考虑的关键岩石力学参数之一。岩石脆,压裂过程中易产生缝网,从而有效改造储层,达到提高单井产量的目的。基于岩石弹性参数的归一化杨氏模量和泊松比方法,是当前广泛采用的可用于地震预测的岩石脆性评价技术,但其结果受归一化参数取值的影响较大,适用性受到影响。利用杨氏模量和泊松比的商作为脆性评价指标,并用大量岩石力学实验刻度,大大提高了岩石脆性判别的可信度。利用地震叠前弹性参数反演,开展吉木萨尔凹陷二叠系芦草沟组致密油岩石脆性预测,指导水平井部署。为保证更好的储层改造效果,在水平井轨迹设计过程中不但考虑了储层物性,还充分考虑了岩石脆性。在优选的有利区钻探水平井,并实施了体积压裂,微地震监测结果显示压裂产生了缝状网,储层改造效果理想。该水平井试油获得了稳定高产工业油流。     

基于MODIS谱纹信息融合的海洋溢油检测方法

鉴于仅依赖光谱特征或纹理特征的传统溢油检测算法的信息检测精度较低的问题,本文提出了一种新的光学遥感数据的谱纹海面溢油检测方法。谱是光学遥感数据的油膜敏感波段图像,纹是利用灰度共生矩阵计算获得的图像纹理特征,将这些特征相结合,引入支持向量机方法（Support Vector Machine,SVM）,建立谱纹海面溢油检测模型。本文以2006年渤海溢油事故为例,利用中等分辨率成像光谱仪MODIS的光学遥感数据对溢油进行检测,MODIS的第2波段为油膜敏感波段,所以,第2波段图像即为选取的谱特征,经过对各个纹理特征的分析得到,均值、对比和相关3个特征量可作为溢油提取的纹理特征。检测结果的总体精度达91.23%。试验结果表明,将MODIS图像的光谱特征和纹理特征相结合,可有效地对渤海海洋油膜信息进行检测,并具有很强的抑制噪声能力。