This exercise is used in an introductory undergraduate level geoscience course primarily taken by non-majors. The course title is Sustainable Earth.

The students will have been introduced in the lecture section of the class to the principles of basic hydrocarbon systems—source rock, reservoir, type of trap.

The activity is the last lab class. The concept is that the students have to assimilate a lot of information to make informed decisions.

Finding hydrocarbon reserves requires knowledge of the geology

Critical evaluation and integration of geological information

Contouring, working as a team, cooperation between teams, basic financial skills.

This exercise simulates the geologic, economic, and competitive business conditions usually encountered in oil and gas exploration. Each student is now a geologist with their own exploration and production corporation, and all corporations are competing to find oil and gas resources in the map area provided. Every section in this quadrangle has been drilled by oil companies in the past. Everyone agrees there must be oil and/or gas here, but no one has been successful in bringing in a producing well. Apparently none of the companies bothered to hire a geologist to analyze the data (weird!). They have gone bankrupt and the leases are all available for sale. Suddenly several corporations with geologists (you) appear on the scene, but with limited capital. The principal goal is to make as big a profit as possible for your corporation; therefore you must find the most oil and gas possible in a limited amount of time. To find oil and gas deposits, there are essentially 3 steps:

1) Gather information about the geology of the area and determine areas that are potential traps
2) Make bids on the land that you determine has high potential
3) Drill wells to see if you are correct

They have made money at the end of the assignment!