Midland Core Archive to Relocate to Houston Research Center

Effective November 1, 2024, the Bureau of Economic Geology’s Midland Core Research Center (MCRC) will permanently close to the public. Ever since the Shell Oil Company donated the facility to the Bureau back in 1995, the MCRC has been in constant operation serving Permian Basin-area geologists, students, and the general public.

The MCRC’s physical rock collection of cores will be transferred to the Bureau’s Houston and Austin repositories, with the vast majority going to the Houston Research Center (HRC). In order to coordinate such a large-scale project, the Bureau hired the experienced TASC Tulsa team, under the direction of Ryan Medico, to perform the move.

The core transfer will initially focus on the newer warehouse addition at the MCRC, known as Area 7, which contains an estimated 75,000 boxes of cores. The TASC Tulsa team will pull core boxes from storage, prepare the boxes onto pallets, and arrange freight trucks to bring the pallets to the HRC. The project is estimated to take between six and nine months to complete.

Once the pallets of core arrive at the HRC, the boxes will be placed into new, permanent storage locations within the newest warehouse addition at the HRC. TASC Tulsa employees working in conjunction with HRC Manager Nick Hamilton will oversee the receiving, rack placement, and capturing of the physical and electronic inventory information of the transferred Midland cores.

The Bureau would like to thank long time MCRC Facility Manager, Andrew Faigle, for his years of service and commitment to the Bureau and the MCRC, and wish him the best in future endeavors.