Jock McCracken, P.Geol, currently Canadian Councilor for the EMD, has been a member of the EMD Shale Gas Committee since 2007 and was recently invited to serve as a member of the EMD Shale Gas & Liquids Technical Committee’s Advisory Committee.
After a thirty-year career with the major oil and gas companies, McCracken retired and is operating as Egret Consulting Inc., where he has been busy during the last year and a half working on plays in India, West Newfoundland, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Romania. He is a prospect and lead generator specializing in regional geology with the focus on understanding the source rocks using a global geological analytical approach, integrating multi-data sets. Unconventional plays and anything about source rocks are his interest. Currently his focus has been on getting a well drilled in West Newfoundland testing an unconventional oil-in-shale play.
Prior to this, his early career was with Mobil Oil in Calgary, St.John’s, Toronto and London, U.K., and then Petro-Canada/Suncor in Calgary. He has specialized, throughout his career, in international and frontier exploration with experience in all the onshore and offshore basins of Eastern Canada, the North Sea, China and Alaska. He was part of team that recently evaluated a diverse number of new plays in the basins of North America including all the shale plays. His early work helped contribute to the success of Hibernia and White Rose on the Canadian East Coast, among others.
McCracken received his B.Sc. degree in Oceanography (Geological) at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is an active member of CSPG (1982), AAPG (1983), APEGGA (1983) and EMD (2006). He has been an Industry Advisor for two Natural Resources Canada committees. One was for PERD from1999 to 2009, which is a Science and Technology program involved in designing and funding work in support of the Canada’s energy priorities. The other was the short lived, 2003, Unconventional Natural Gas Committee within the Climate Change Technology and Innovation Initiative.
His publications are as follows:
- Cardott, B.J., Avary K.L., Bowker, K.A., Chidsey, Jr.,T.C., Harrison, III, W.B., McCracken, J.N., Morgan, C.D. and Tabet, D.E 2009, Gas shale, in AAPG EMD, Unconventional energy resources: 2007-2008 review: Natural Resources Research, v. 18, p. 65-83.
- Miall, A.D. Balkwill, H.R. and McCracken, J., 2008, The Atlantic Margin Basins of North America in Sedimentary Basins of North America, Elsevier, pp 473-504
His presentations are as follows:
- McCracken, J.N., Langdon, G., Cooper, M., Millan, S., Jarvie, D.M., Nickerson, B., and Farner S.C., 2010, Upper Cambrian - Lower Ordovician Green Point Shale, Port au Port Bay, West Newfoundland: Evaluation and Delineation of an Offshore Allochthonous Oil-in-Shale Resource Play, AAPG-ICE, Calgary
- McCracken, J and Langdon, G., 2010, Oil in Shale Potential in Port au Port Bay –West Newfoundland: The Green Point Shale—The Rocks and the Oil, in Short Course of Shales, AAPG, New Orleans.
- McCracken, J. Barnwell, A.C., Haager, A., Hunter, D., Kubica, P., Saunders, K., Zwach, C., 2001, Searching for the Outer Limits of the Upper Jurassic source rocks, AAPG, Denver
- McCracken, J. Haager, A., Saunders, K., Veilleux, B., Kubica, P., 2000,Upper Jurassic Source Rocks of the Flemish Pass, CSPG, Calgary
- McCracken, J. and Harrison, D.,1995, Delineation of the Upper Jurassic Reservoirs, Witch Ground Graben, North Sea, using Genetic Sequence Stratigraphy Methodology, CSPG, Calgary
- McCracken J., 1991, Paleogeography of the Jeanne d’Arc Basin, Grand Banks of Newfoundland, AAPG, Dallas