History
The Oklahoma City Geological Society was formally organized in 1921 at a meeting held in the home of Dr. Irving Perrine. The first constitution was a brief legal instrument of four short articles stating the name, object, membership, and officers. The Society was inactive from 1923 until 1929 when the discovery of the Oklahoma City oil field in 1928 created a renewed interest in geology in the Oklahoma City area. There were 48 Charter Members, defined as those members attending the first meeting in 1921 or the reorganization meeting held at the YMCA in May 1929. Since 1929 the Society has held noon luncheon and evening meetings featuring technical subjects related to geology and oil and gas, but also featured speakers on a variety of subjects of interest to the membership. The Society grants scholarships to geology majors at state universities and grants awards to students with geologically related projects at the State Science Fairs.
Since 1932 the Society has periodically held geological field trips in Oklahoma and surrounding states and published the guidebooks for them. In 1951 the Society began publishing the Shale Shaker, a periodical which is the Journal of the Oklahoma City Geological Society. The Shale Shaker is now beginning its fifty-second volume. The Society has published reference reports on oil and gas fields in Oklahoma, transactions of regional meetings it has hosted, other technical subjects pertaining to geology, and the Shale Shaker Digest, a compilation of the technical articles from the Shale Shaker.
In 1966 the Oklahoma City Geological Society was incorporated in the State of Oklahoma as a non-profit corporation. Also in 1966 the Society purchased a privately owned geological library and designated it as the Geological Library, an integral function of the Oklahoma City Geological Society, Inc.. The Geological Library was originally located in the Cravens Building from 1966 until 1978 when it was moved to the Park-Harvey Building. In 2001 the Library and society offices will be moved to the First National Bank Building. Since its beginning the Geological Library has grown into one of the premiere repositories of geological and well data relating to the petroleum industry in the southwestern United States.
During its eighty-year history, the Oklahoma City Geological Society has been closely associated with the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, and was one of its earliest member societies.
The Oklahoma City Geological Society has 1018 members of whom 827 are located in Oklahoma, 121 in Texas, and 70 are in 19 other states. The Geological Library has 712 members with 101 members outside of Oklahoma.
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