Browsing by Subject "Oklahoma"
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Item An Urban Runoff Model for Tulsa, Oklahoma(University of Texas at Austin, 1978-08) Beard, L.R.Item Burying the Axe & Fording the River: A Tale of Regional Economic Cooperation(Bureau of Business Research, The University of Texas at Austin, 2007-02) Poole, Kenneth E.Economic development in Oklahoma and Texas has often involved one state's efforts to snatch companies from the other. When competing against one another, the Oklahoma-Texas rivalry could sometimes become blood sport. However, leaders from both sides of the Red River realized the advantages that comes with economic cooperation. So they resolved to ford the river and begin an unlikely collaboration between a relatively rural area of north Texas and southern Oklahoma - an area known as "Texoma" after the large lake in the center of the region.Item Characterization of the Cana-Woodford Shale using fractal-based, stochastic inversion, Canadian County, Oklahoma(2016-05) Borgman, Barry Michael; Spikes, Kyle; Sen, Mrinal K; Wilson, Clark RThe past decade has seen a surge in unconventional hydrocarbon exploration and production, driven by advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Even with such advances, reliable models of the subsurface are crucial in all phases of exploitation. This study focuses on the methods used for estimation of the elastic properties (density, velocity, and impedance), which play a key role in targeting reservoir zones ideal for hydraulic fracturing. Well-log data provides high-resolution vertical measurements of elastic properties, but a relatively shallow depth of investigation imposes spatial limitations. Seismic data provides broader horizontal coverage at lower cost, but sacrifices vertical resolution. Thin beds present in many unconventional reservoirs fall below seismic resolution. In addition, the band-limited nature of seismic data results in the absence of low-frequency content of the Earth model, as well as the high-frequency content present in well logs. Seismic inversion is a process that provides estimates of elastic properties given input seismic and well data. Stochastic inversion is a method that uses well-log data as a priori information, with an added aspect of randomness. The method generates many realizations using the same input model and takes an average of those realizations. We implement two separate stochastic inversion algorithms to estimate P-impedance in the Cana-Woodford Shale in west-central Oklahoma. First, we use a fractal-based, very fast simulated annealing algorithm that exploits the fractal characteristics found in well-log data to build a prior model. The method of very fast simulated annealing optimizes our elastic model by searching for the minimum misfit between observed and synthetic seismic traces. Next, we use a principal component analysis (PCA) based stochastic inversion algorithm to invert for impedance at all traces simultaneously. Comparison of the results with traditional deterministic inversion results shows improved vertical resolution while honoring the low-frequency content of the Earth model. The PCA-based inversion results also show improved lateral continuity of the elastic profile along our 2D line. The impedance profile from the PCA-based approach provides a better representation of the vertical and horizontal variability of the reservoir, allowing for improved targeting of frackable zones.Item Cherokee telephone(Telephone Pub. Co., 1893-11-09) Ivey, Augustus EItem The curious case of Oklahoma : a historical analysis of the passage of universal pre-kindergarten legislation in Oklahoma(2013-05) Bell, Christian Marie; Reyes, Pedro, 1954-; Gershoff, Elizabeth T.State-funded voluntary pre-K programs have grown steadily over the past decade and now enroll 1.3 million children (Barnett, Carolan, Fitzgerald, J., & Squires, 2012). While the overall trend has been to increase participation in state funded Pre-K, access in most states is targeted to select groups of at-risk 4-year-olds. Unfortunately, targeted programs for disadvantaged children tend to underserve their targeted populations with respect to availability and quality (Gelbach & Pritchett, 2002). In light of this, Pre-K advocates have begun pushing for universal Pre-K. However, only six states offer universal-prekindergarten, and with varying degrees of success. In this environment of modest state funding for Pre-K, the state of Oklahoma has managed to rise to the forefront of the universal Pre-K movement. That a high-quality Pre-K system exists in a conservative state is a very curious case and provides an opportunity for a thorough examination of the political processes. This study seeks not only to explain the development and passage of universal Pre-K in Oklahoma, but to also understand what lessons can be taken from a historical analysis of this issue for contemporary education policy.Item Depth-registration of 9-component 3-dimensional seismic data in Stephens County, Oklahoma(2014-05) Al-Waily, Mustafa Badieh; Hardage, Bob Adrian, 1939-Multicomponent seismic imaging techniques improve geological interpretation by providing crucial information about subsurface characteristics. These techniques deliver different images of the same subsurface using multiple waveforms. Compressional (P) and shear (S) waves respond to lithology and fluid variations differently, providing independent measurements of rock and fluid properties. Joint interpretation of multicomponent images requires P-wave and S-wave events to be aligned in depth. The process of identifying P and S events from the same reflector is called depth-registration. The purpose of this investigation is to illustrate procedures for depth-registering P and S seismic data when the most fundamental information needed for depth-registration – reliable velocity data – are not available. This work will focus on the depth-registration of a 9-component 3-dimensional seismic dataset targeting the Sycamore formation in Stephens County, Oklahoma. The survey area – 16 square miles – is located in Sho-Vel-Tum oilfield. Processed P-P, SV-SV, and SH-SH wave data are available for post-stack analysis. However, the SV-data volume will not be interpreted because of its inferior data-quality compared to the SH-data volume. Velocity data are essential in most depth-registration techniques: they can be used to convert the seismic data from the time domain to the depth domain. However, velocity data are not available within the boundaries of the 9C/3D seismic survey. The data are located in a complex area that is folded and faulted in the northwest part of the Ardmore basin, between the eastern Arbuckle Mountains and the western Wichita Mountains. Large hydrocarbon volumes are produced from stratigraphic traps, fault closures, anticlines, and combination traps. Sho-Vel-Tum was ranked 31st in terms of proved oil reserves among U.S. oil fields by a 2009 survey. I will interpret different depth-registered horizons on the P-wave and S-wave seismic data volumes. Then, I will present several methods to verify the accuracy of event-registration. Seven depth-registered horizons are mapped through the P-P and SH-SH seismic data. These horizons show the structural complexity that imposes serious challenges on well drilling within the Sho-Vel-Tum oil field. Interval Vp/Vs – a seismic attribute often used as lithological indicator – was mapped to constrain horizon picking and to characterize lateral stratigraphic variations.Item Final Report: Conservation assessment and mapping products for GPLCC priority fish taxa(2014-12-08) Hendrickson, Dean A.; Labay, Ben J.Strategic conservation planning for broad, multi-species landscapes benefits from a data-driven approach that emphasizes persistence of all priority species populations and utilized landscapes, while simultaneously accounting for human uses. This study presents such an assessment for priority fishes of the Great Plains of the United States. Species distribution models for 28 priority fishes were created and incorporated into a prioritization framework using the open source software Zonation, accounting for species-specific connectivity needs and current fish habitat condition. Multiple additional assessments were then produced that i.) identify distinct species management units based on distance and compositional similarity of stream segments containing priority species, ii.) compare results of ranking species' conservation values at the local (state) and global scale, and iii.) provide 'bang-for-buck' perspectives, emphasizing richness of priority species, at state and major basin scales. Together, these analyses are intended to aid managers in effective allocation of conservation action with regards to imperiled fishes of the Great Plains. Implementation of a broad-scale multi-species approach such as this complements traditional reactive management and restoration by encouraging cooperation and coordination among stakeholders and partners, increasing efficiency of future monitoring and management efforts.Item Final Report: Provision and Inventory of Diverse Aquatic Ecosystem-related Resources for the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC)(Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative, 2010-11-15) Hendrickson, Dean A.; Sarkar, Sahotra; Molineux, AnnThe newly established Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC) is faced with the immense task of having to quickly compile and manage extensive databases or inventories of the biodiversity that it has been charged to manage and sustain, and then with the task of analyzing those huge data sets and capitalizing on them to develop sound, science-based management plans. As if that weren’t difficult enough, we now know that the playing field for that planning will be shifting continually as climates change. How do those faced with such difficult tasks proceed? We bring our considerable and diverse expertise to bear on these issues. The basic task of inventorying biodiversity has actually been under way for many years. Existing natural history museum collections, like those in which we work, can provide major contributions to such inventories in the form of valuable historic organismal occurrence records, and their specimens can be used in many ways for basic research and applied conservation planning. Unfortunately, much of the wealth of information stored in natural history collections requires substantial investment to be made accessible and useful to natural resource managers and researchers. We were charged by the GPLCC with providing some of the inventory data that will be required, and to assess what other data may be available and what will be required to make it useful. From databases that we and our collaborators (see Acknowledgments) manage, we compiled extensive, high quality data sets on occurrences of fishes, aquatic reptiles and amphibians (“herps”), freshwater mussels, and cave invertebrates from the Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Oklahoma portions of the GPLCC. We here deliver these >76,000 complete, standardized and normalized records (Appendix 3, summarized in Table 1), over 55% of them georeferenced and in a format that should make them immediately useful to the GPLCC. We also surveyed our colleagues and otherwise explored availability of other data sets for aquatic organisms in the GPLCC, providing 19 metadata records describing these additional resources. These metadata have been accepted by the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) and will be published by that major metadata aggregating service to assure future availability to interested parties. We also mined the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) for organismal occurrence records within the GPLCC and here provide those nearly 2 million records of over 27,000 species ranging from bacteria through fungi, plants and animals. Unfortunately only about 2% are georeferenced with precision estimates and much work would be required to standardize and georeference these records and make them useful to the GPLCC via applications such as those used in this project. Once the GPLCC obtains the extensive biodiversity inventories it requires, it is by no means easy to integrate such massive data sets into management planning. However, we demonstrate how raw occurrences for diverse sets of organisms can be effectively combined in computer models with diverse environmental data (including past, present and future) in ways that greatly facilitate planning at the landscape level. Our methods also allow incorporation of complex information on socioeconomic factors that in practice always complicate on-the-ground management into such planning. We do this by first developing powerful predictive computer models of each species’ distribution. These models provide a continuous coverage of probabilities of occurrence of each species for all cells of a fine-scale grid extending across the landscape of interest (the entire state of Texas in our demonstration), thus “filling in the blanks” between the actual occurrences that are limited by many factors such as historic factors, accessibility, and landowner permission. Our models were developed with recent occurrence records and recent climate data, and were thoroughly tested and demonstrated to be powerful predictors of actual occurrences under current conditions. While our demonstration was done statewide for Texas, it uses species that occur in, and are of particular interest to, the GPLCC, and our methods could be used by the GPLCC for its geographic area once appropriate occurrence data are obtained. However, we know the current conditions on which our models are based are not going to persist; climates are changing globally but, at least for the GPLCC reliable fine-scale predictions of exactly how they will change have not been available. We here provide a solution to the previous lack of high resolution regional climate change predictions by taking the most widely accepted and authoritative, and most recent, global predictions of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and regionalizing them, at high spatial resolution, for the GPLCC and for all of Texas. We were then able to replace the current climate data that went into our species distribution models with predicted future climate data, and thus compute how species’ distributions would shift if those climate predictions were realized. But, simply knowing how the climate-based habitat suitability for a handful of species might shift under predicted scenarios of climate change does not go a long way toward planning conservation of those and many more species indefinitely into an uncertain future, especially in complex socioeconomic settings that invariably limit management options. To illustrate how substantive progress can be made toward solving such exceedingly complex conundrums, we demonstrate how our species distribution models can be used together with current and predicted future environment and socioeconomic factors as input to a protocol for the selection of priority areas for biodiversity conservation. We use the powerful ConsNet conservation planning program to implement this protocol and produce a portfolio of priority area sets for conservation network planning. Initial results from ConsNet integrate a great diversity of biological knowledge and serve as a baseline starting point from which managers and policy makers can proceed by adding additional levels of multi-criteria analyses of other factors, such as habitat impaction and/or socioeconomic/ecosystem service cost-benefit parameters. With our sample data we demonstrate how, with ConsNet, planners can easily and interactively produce large numbers of variations of such results for diverse criteria of interest, thus providing a large variety of alternatives to consider for potential implementation. In summary, GPLCC support for this project enabled us to utilize fish occurrence data for Texas that we had been compiling, normalizing and improving for many years and apply it in the rigorous modeling, climate change and conservation network planning exercises reported here. These proof-of-concept demonstrations focused on Texas only because that is the area for which our previous projects provided the required high quality data. However, this project has now begun to compile the basic historic, current and future species occurrence and environmental data sets the GPLCC will need to perform such analyses for its own geographic scope, perhaps applying the same methodologies, data sets and tools we developed and provided in this project. We look forward to continuing to work with GPLCC to build and improve its data resources and tool set to help it address the complex issues it will face as it strives to attain its long-term conservation and sustainability objectives.Item Geologic Challenges and Opportunites of the Cherokee Group Play (Pennsylvanian): Anadarko Basin, Oklahoma(1993) Hentz, Tucker F.The Middle Pennsylvanian Cherokee Group composes one of the most active natural gas plays in the Anadarko Basin of Oklahoma, having produced more than 1.2 Tcf from major (> 10 Bcf cumulative production) Cherokee reservoirs in Beckham, Custer, Roger Mills, and Washita Counties, the area currently experiencing the most active Cherokee development activity. Preliminary geologic study and telephone survey of 15 Cherokee operators satisfied three primary project objectives: (1) to summarize both the geologic characteristics of the Cherokee Group and the production highlights in the four-county area of current activity; (2) to summarize what current Cherokee producing companies perceive to be the primary geologic challenges they face in developing the Cherokee play; and (3) to suggest geologic strategies to help respond to these challenges. Geologic questions related to Cherokee gas-production enhancement are fundamental, and answers to these questions have the potential to alter current production strategies, reduce risk, and ultimately to increase natural gas reserves. Most of the surveyed Cherokee operators acknowledge that they have only a partial understanding of regional facies relations within the Cherokee depositional systems tracts. Moreover, there is no clear and integrated perspective of depositional systems, reservoir geometry, and diagenesis among all Cherokee fields in the play area. Reservoir geometry is complex and not readily predictable; therefore, drilling of infill wells, which characterizes the current development strategy of the Cherokee play, is fraught with uncertainty. The high degree of variation in porosity and permeability cannot be predicted from current knowledge of reservoir-quality patterns. A limited per-well drainage area suggests internal compartmentalization of sandstone reservoirs. Investigations at several scales can provide needed information. Improved and more precise modeling of (1) the regional spectra of Cherokee depositional settings at the play scale, (2) depositional facies and geometry at the field scale, and (3) facies architecture, diagenesis, and fracture distribution at the reservoir scale would aid the efficient exploitation of the remaining natural gas resources in the Cherokee play.Item Health Planning in Transition: Structure and Performance in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, PRP 29(LBJ School of Public Affairs, 1978) Warner, David C.; Thomas, DennisItem Investigation on the Red River made in connection with the Oklahoma-Texas boundary suit(University of Texas at Austin, 1923-07-15) Sellards, E.H.Item Letter to Alfred R. Loeblich, Jr. from H.B. Stenzel on 1943-02-08(1943-02-08) Stenzel, H.B.Item Letter to Fred T. Moseley from H.B. Stenzel on 1946-03-18(1946-03-18) Stenzel, H.B.Item Letter to H.B. Stenzel from A.L. Lyth on Undated(0000-00-00) Lyth, A.L.Item Letter to H.B. Stenzel from Alfred R. Loeblich, Jr. on 1946-03-05(1946-03-05) Loeblich, Alfred R., Jr.Item Letter to H.B. Stenzel from C.C. Church on 1962-06-21(1962-06-21) Church, C.C.Item Letter to H.B. Stenzel from Frank A. Melton on 1936-12-07(1936-12-07) Melton, Frank A.Item Letter to H.B. Stenzel from Fred T. Moseley on 1946-03-20(1946-03-20) Moseley, Fred T.Item Letter to H.B. Stenzel from Grace Wilmarth on 1935-10-07(1935-10-07) Wilmarth, GraceItem Letter to H.B. Stenzel from H.P. Willis on 1949-03-30(1949-03-30) Willis, H.P.