Dr. Vince  Matthews, Colorado State Geologist, spoke to about 30 high level industry representatives and WhiteStar clients yesterday at the University Club of Denver on “The Global Scramble for Natural Resources – Its Impact on Colorado”.    The event was co-hosted by Spatial Solutions Group. Matthews warned of escalating prices for metallic and rare earth minerals, even accounting for the recent economic downturn.  He also pointed out that China is the sole source for many rare earth minerals used notably in manufacture of vehicles like the Toyota Prius,  and that it is now increasingly unwilling to export many metallic and rare-earth minerals.  Matthews pointed out that China is rapidly acquiring all of the mineral resources it can during the down economic times at bargain basement prices, including a recent attempt to acquire coal resources in Kentucky and a strategic molybdenum mine in Colorado.   This trenda is almost completely unnoticed in America.  Matthews likened Chinese mineral resource acquisition to a high stakes game that, “Most Americans do not even know we are playing”.   In short, we are selling our children’s futures to foreign interests.   Matthews is the State Geologist for Colorado and Director of the Colorado Geological Survey.

Today updates for our Unlimited Product line were shipped out.  Current subscribers can look forward to numerous data updates and enhancements.  In our blog posts over the past few weeks we have talked about a number of the data and program enhancements users will find and they are described below:

Unlimited Base Map Access:
Data Update - Updated pipeline information for the State of Texas.
Data Enhancement - Breakout tanks and pipeline information for the State of
Oklahoma
Data Enhancement - Pipeline information for the Gulf of Mexico that edge-
matches the State of Texas.
Data Enhancement - Oil and Gas Fields/ Pool outlines will be found all
throughout the Appalachian Basin, as well as the following states:  Alaska,
Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, New
Mexico, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada & California.
Data Enhancement - Added US Forest Service National Forest/Grasslands
Boundaries
Enhancement - CDF format support for smartSECTION 4.8.1.  This allows users
to load CDF formatted data directly into smartSECTION.

Unlimited Grid Access:

Data Update - Survey updates/corrections for parts of Texas

Enhancement - CDF format support for smartSECTION 4.8.1.  This allows users
to load CDF formatted data directly into smartSECTION.

Unlimited Well Access:

Data Update - Well updates for Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Gulf of
Mexico, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee,
Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

We’re really excited about these features and trust you will be also.

After some extensive research, we here at WhiteStar think that we may have found, through a different Wyoming government office, a proper GCDB for the Wyoming Lots & Tracts data.  We are currently sifting through this new data set in order to determine the extent of work required in order to make it seamless, as well as the level of accuracy.

So, in regards to the issues that Robert pointed out in his Oct.8 blog, we are still hopeful that we have found a reliable source for the BLM GCDB data in which we can conscientiously provide our customers. Stay tuned, as we will be sure to let you all know how this turns out.

-Jeff

In his September 23rd blog post, Jeff Smith made you all aware of the Oil & Gas Field layer addition to Unlimited Basemap Access (UBA) for 4th Quarter 2009.  In addition to the Oil & Gas fields we’ve added gas transmission and HVL pipelines for the State of Oklahoma as well as pipelines for the Gulf of Mexico.  These data sets have been seamless integrated into the already available Texas pipelines.  Good stuff!

Here at WhiteStar we are staying true to our vision of providing our clients the data sets needed to make their jobs easier and hopefully more fun.  Stay tuned to the blog for additional news on other product improvements and enhancements in the coming weeks.

Recently the BLM published an update of their GCDB data, or the section, township, range, and lot and tract data and published it to their web site. We recently took a close look at the Wyoming update to this data in shape file format. Our clients rely on this data in Wyoming as they use it to plan wells and locate leases in Wyoming’s exploration basins in addition to our industry standard version of the data from USGS topographic maps. There are several troubling aspects to the new BLM data, many of which have been problems right along. For example:

Sections, townships, lots and tracts have been physically moved from the last update, in some instances by as much as 800 feet.
The BLM GCDB Data Quality Information metadata page says that the data are topologically structured. This is not the case. We have identified more than 865 slivers in the data corresponding to gaps and overlaps within the data
The BLM Metadata page states, “The GCDB was created to provide the BLM and its public with a set of geographic foundation data that would most accurately portray the locations of PLSS corners.

These observation are concerning as the data were released without any explanation as to why the township data were moved. Moving large chunks of data by large amounts statewide creates large questions in the data consumer’s mind. I have made a point of telling clients in the past that it is absolutely critical to understand how a data set was acquired, how it was processed, and to understand what the changes mean. Without that piece of information, you are operating your exploration program in the dark.

Given the past two published versions of the data, we see little evidence to indicate that the BLM is honoring their vision for the GCDB cadastral data.