The Alaska North Slope oil-rock correlation study was organized because several oil companies requested oil and rock samples for geochemical analyses that were recovered during the exploration drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA). Samples acquired with public funds could not be given to private organizations unless some guarantees could be provided that the information acquired from these samples could be made available to the public. For this reason, in August 1981, we sent out over 40 invitations to research laboratories in industry, government, and academia.

Requirements to participate in this study included: (1) participation in an AAPG-sponsored research conference, (2) presentation of the data interpretations at the 1983 Annual AAPG Meeting in Dallas Texas, and (3) contribution of a manuscript, to include all acquired data and interpretations, that would be included in a symposium volume. If a research group wished to participate, they were to write a letter of intent that included their proposed analytical program and a statement indicating that the requirements would be adhered to by their group. Even with these stringent requirements, 30 research groups wished to participate. A balanced cross section of research groups are participating and are as follows: 15 from oil companies, 7 from commercial laboratories, 7 from government laboratories, and 1 university laboratory. These groups are listed in Table 1.

In January 1982, each research group was sent 8 oils and 15 rocks recovered from NPRA drilling and 1 oil from the Prudhoe Bay field. Each group then proceeded to analyze these samples as they indicated in their letter of intent.