2009 GCAGS TRANSACTIONS

(Download as a Word Document here)

Persons are expected to submit a paper if their abstract is accepted for presentation in the GCAGS/GCSSEPM sessions at the 2009 Annual Meeting, hosted by the Shreveport Geological Society (SGS).  Papers for the GCAGS Transactions can range from extended abstracts of 2-4 published pages with key figures included to full manuscripts (up to about 10-12 published pages).  Submissions of full manuscripts are encouraged.

GENERAL SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Please follow all guidelines exactly!  Authors’ failure to follow format instructions in the past has cost GCAGS time and money.  Manuscripts not following guidelines will be returned immediately for format correction.  All submissions of final edited manuscript and illustrations must be received by the 1 June 2009 deadline.

ABSOLUTE DEADLINES:
Abstract submission – 18 February,  2009
For the 2009 joint meeting, all technical sessions require submission of a basic 200-300 word abstract to Gary Hanson for consideration into the program at gary.hanson@lsus.edu. Abstract submission runs from 1 November 2008 through 18 February 2009.  Session chairs for the 2009 GCAGS technical program will be accepting abstracts for their session throughout this period so it is important to submit your abstract as soon as possible.  Note that this is a FIRM deadline. 

Manuscript first drafts deadline is 1 April 2009.  Make sure that you have time for manuscript revisions by submitting your initial manuscript for review early.  Manuscripts will be accepted immediately after notification of Abstract acceptance.

Final edited manuscript submission – 1 June 2009
The GCAGS Editor must receive the FINAL VERSION OF THE EDITED MANUSCRIPT AND ILLUSTRATIONS by this final deadline.  Due to the small GCAGS staff we would appreciate it if you would submit your manuscripts as early as possible.  This is a FIRM deadline.

COPYRIGHTED OR PROPRIETARY INFORMATION:  It is the obligation of the author(s) to secure necessary written permissions to use copyrighted and/or proprietary information AND to include copies of those permissions with submitted material.  This primarily applies to (but is not limited to) illustrations from other sources and includes seismic data.  The editors will reject any material that they suspect does not meet these conditions.

Electronic submission  Email a digital version of manuscript and illustrations and send a paper copy of the illustrations.  The digital files must be sent as email attachments to GCAGS editor (mroberts@palmerpetro.com) and the hard copy of the illustrations should be sent to the editor at the address below:

MAILING ADDRESS:  For all initial and final submissions, please use the following address.  Other communications may be handled by e-mail at the discretion of the editors.

Michael T. Roberts
GCAGS Editor - GCAGS Annual Meeting
Palmer Petroleum, Inc.
401 Edwards Street, Suite 1400, Shreveport, LA 71101-3143, USA
Phone: (318) 222 0517 x248
e-mail: mroberts@palmerpetro.com

EMAIL INSTRUCTIONS:  All initial and final email submissions must be sent to the GCAGS Editor (mroberts@palmerpetro.com).  Manuscript and illustration files should be sent as attachments to the email. When emailing, please put “GCAGS2009-lead Author’s last name” in subject line (include enough information to uniquely identify multiple papers by same lead author).  An email reply will be sent acknowledging receipt of the manuscript.

EDITING PROCESS:  Following review by editorial staff, you will be contacted as necessary to make editorial changes.  Communication via e-mail is preferred during the editorial process.  Communication will be made solely to the contact person listed on submitted abstracts.

FINAL SUBMISSION:  Following final corrections and approval, you will be required to submit all material in the digital format outlined below.  Final submissions can be mailed on CD-ROM to the above address or sent by email.

AUTHORS WITH MULTIPLE PAPERS:  Please treat each paper separately, including submission of each on separate CD-ROM or email.  For postage savings, hard copies and CD-ROMs may be sent in the same packet, so long as clear separation exists between individual manuscript materials.

SUBMISSION FORMAT:  Detailed format instructions follow these general instructions.  You are expected to submit all digital files and paper copies in the appropriate format or your manuscript will be immediately returned for correction.  Please do not try to create your own format!  Basically for digital files we want a single-spaced document, left-justified only, 12-point Times New Roman, without any tabs, indentations, etc.  Paper copies will be exactly the same as the digital file but with all text double spaced.  Most questions/topics should be addressed in the following pages, but if you have any format questions you may refer to the 2007 or 2008 GCAGS Transactions as a model. 

PAPER LENGTH:  Following all required guidelines of formatting, your printed copy, including all text, figures, etc., should not exceed 22 or so pages.  THIS IS NOT THE FINAL NUMBER OF TRANSACTIONS PAGES!!  Submitted printout copies that exceed 25 pages will be rejected solely on the basis of length.  With the above format, this is a manuscript of about 50,000 characters including punctuation and spaces. This does not include spaces for illustrations, charts, maps, tables, or figures.  A half page figure counts as 2,700 characters and a full-page figure counts as 5,400 characters. Use your word processor character count feature to determine the length of your manuscript before submitting. 

GENERAL DIGITAL FORMAT OF ALL TEXT MATERIAL

• DIGITAL FILE TYPE:  All text (manuscript text and figure captions) must be submitted in Microsoft Word format.  No exceptions.
• FONT:  All text must be 12-point Times New Roman.
• TEXT STYLE:  All text must be normal text—NO bold, ALL CAPS, italics, underlining, etc.  Should such options be necessary (e.g., italicization of paleontological names, special emphasis, etc.), do not change the text from normal text but rather please place the word Flag and request/explanation in square brackets—e.g., “…the H2S [Flag:  Subscript 2] levels…,” or “…preservation of Bigenerina humblei [Flag:  Italicize Bigenerina humblei]….”  This will ensure that your formatting will be preserved, as editors can search “flag” and find all such locations quickly.
• JUSTIFICATION:  All text must be left-justified.
• MARGINS:  Set all page margins to 1-in, top, bottom, left, and right.
• NO TABS/INDENTATIONS:  No tabs or indentations whatsoever.  This includes paragraphs.  Sole exception will be for indication of heading levels, but spaces will be used rather than tabs or indentations (see comments below under Manuscript Text Format).
• NO EMBEDDED FIGURES/TABLES:  Do not embed anything into your text.  All illustrations, captions, and tables must be submitted as separate files.
• LINE SPACING:  All text must be single spaced in all digital files.  Please note that this differs from submission of paper copies in which an overall double-spacing to the manuscript will be applied during initial submission (see comments below).
• PARAGRAPH SPACING:  Please use a double “Hard Return,” to separate all paragraphs and headings—one “Hard Return” (the key “Enter” on most computer keyboards) ends the paragraph, and the second will add a single blank line between the first paragraph and the next. 
• MEASUREMENT SYSTEM:  All units (in manuscript text, figure captions or illustrations) should be either in the English or Metric measurement system.  DO NOT MIX UNITS.  USE ONE OR THE OTHER THROUGHOUT YOUR PAPER.  Please add the English or Metric equivalent in parentheses following your preferred unit.  Note, use approximate equivalents where the original measurement is also approximate, as in “The unit is about 1,000 ft (300 m) thick” not “(304.8 m) thick.”
• ABBREVIATIONS:  Use standard abbreviations where appropriate, e.g., ft, in, mi, etc.  Note that many do not include periods (for inch, either in or in. is acceptable, with period often being used to avoid confusion with the word “in”).  If in doubt, consult a dictionary.  For non-standard abbreviations, please spell out at its first use followed by abbreviation in parentheses, but thereafter use only the abbreviation.
• QUOTATIONS:  In general direct quotes are not appropriate in scientific writing, and are used only when absolutely necessary.  Paraphrase instead.

GRAMMAR/STYLE/ETC.—Refer to the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers and appropriate dictionaries.  Please save the editors some time and effort by having a capable friend or colleague review your paper prior to submission.

 
MANUSCRIPT TEXT FORMAT AND ORGANIZATION

GENERAL:  For general text formatting, follow the directions above within General Digital Format of All Text Material. 

FIGURE REFERENCE:  For figure reference in primary manuscript text, please follow the guidelines below:

• Figure references must be in numerical order.  You must refer to Figure 1 in the text before or at the same time as Figure 2 and so forth. 
• If used within sentence, write out the word Figure, with Figure capitalized—e.g., “The fault highlighted in Figure 1 exhibits ….”  If used at end of text, place in parentheses and abbreviate as Fig.—e.g., “Most faults exhibit a concave-downward geometry (Fig. 3).” 
• If referring to multiple illustrations use Figures—e.g., “…faults indicated in Figures 2 and 5…”—or use Figs.—e.g., “…downthrown block of the faults (Figs. 2 and 4)...”.  If referring to consecutive figures at the same time, use a hyphen—e.g., “…Figures 2-3…” or
  “…(Figs. 2-3).”
• If illustration has multiple parts refer to them as #A, #B, etc., using only capital letters, no hyphen—e.g., “…Figures 3A and 4B…”.  Please note that an accompanying capital letter must be placed on the figure itself to delineate each individual component.

• GENERAL:  Organize your paper according to this outline: Title, author name(s), author affiliation(s) and address(-es), heading level outline, abstract, text, acknowledgments, references cited.
• TITLE:  The title and author section should be formatted as follows:  Please note that all information in title is left-justified, flush with left margin, all the same font, and no special text (i.e., do not superscript author numbers, or in this case don’t even Flag it, as we know to take care of this during final formatting and typesetting).

EXAMPLE

Biogenic Mounds and Associated Trace Fossils: Wolfe City Formation (Upper Cretaceous),
North-Central Texas

William C. Dawson1 and Donald F. Reaser2

1 Texaco, Inc., 3901 Briarpark, Houston, Texas  77042

2 Department of Geology, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas  76019

Please note that all information in title is left-justified, without tabs, all the same font, and no special text (i.e., do not superscript author numbers, or in this case don’t even Flag it, as we know to take care of this during final formatting and typesetting).

HEADING LEVELS:  Please subdivide your paper into appropriate sections, labeled by headings, up to four levels of headings.  All shall be left justified with spaces added as “pseudo”-indentations.  DO NOT USE ACTUAL INDENTATIONS OR TABS.  Note that to use a particular heading level, you must have at least 2 consecutive headings at that level.

HEADING LEVEL 1           (all caps, flush to left margin; hit enter twice before continuing with text block, or next lower level header)

Heading Level 2             (only first letters capitalized, add 5 spaces between left margin and heading text)

Heading Level 3             (only first letters capitalized, add 10 spaces between left margin and heading text; hit enter twice before
continuing with text block, or next lower level header)

Heading Level 4.  Continue with paragraph text.  (Only first letters capitalized, add 15 spaces between left margin and heading text; add a period after the heading text, then follow with paragraph text).
 

• HEADING LEVEL OUTLINE:  In addition to headings placed within the text, we require that, following the title and author information and before the abstract (a 1st-level heading itself), you provide a paper outline of all headings and subheadings. 
• Basically you can go through your manuscript and copy each heading line into a place between the author information and abstract.  THIS IS IMPORTANT TO ENSURE THAT HEADING FORMATTING IS CORRECT! 
• An example is shown below.  Note that your heading levels and names will vary, but all FULL PAPERS will have first-level headings entitled ABSTRACT, INTRODUCTION, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (spelled correctly with no E after the G!), and REFERENCES CITED.  All FULL PAPERS will also have some form of body headings, and some form of summary and/or conclusions heading.
• If paper is ABSTRACT only, it will only have ABSTRACT, no additional headings, no references, no. figs., etc.
• If paper is an EXTENDED ABSTRACT, it will have a first-level heading entitled EXTENDED ABSTRACT, additional body headings if necessary (No Introduction however), and can include tables, figs., references, etc.

Title information

Author name(s)

Author information(s)

ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
METHODS
-Core Analysis
-Porosity and Permeability
-Yield Strength
-Log Analysis
-Calibrations and Corrections
-Tri-Plots
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
REFERENCES CITED

ABSTRACT

And here you begin your abstract text….

REFERENCE GUIDELINES

• REFERENCES CITATIONS AT END OF PAPER:  Format references in AAPG style similar to the following examples, and list in alphabetical order:

• Single Author:

      Author’s last name, initials, year, title of paper (with only proper nouns capitalized): name of journal (SPELL OUT FULLY), v. p. X-XX.

      Ex. Bebout, D. G., 1978, Frio sandstone reservoirs in the deep subsurface along the Texas Gulf Coast: The University of Texas at Austin Bureau of Economic Geology, Report of Investigations, v. 1, p. 12-13.

• Multiple  Authors:

Senior author’s last name and initials, initials and last names of additional authors, year, etc. Rank by author first, then by year:
Examples.
Smith, A. B., 1974, etc.
Smith, A. B., 1981, etc.      
Smith, A. B., and C. D. Smith, 1978, etc.
Smith, A. B., C. D. Smith, and E. F. Smith, 1977, etc.
Smith, A. B., C. D. Smith, and E. F. Smith, 1979, etc.
Smith, A. B., et al., 1972, etc.

• Authors whose work appeared in large nonjournal publications:

      Smith, A. B., 1974, My favorite rocks—a love story, in K. C. Jones, ed., Rocks of the French Riviera:  New York, Anyold Press, 510 p.

• REFERENCE CITATIONS WITHIN TEXT: 
• Within sentence, use format such as “Smith and Jones (1999) stated that….”  Notice past tense ("stated"), since the paper was written in the past! 
• At end of sentence, place entire reference within parentheses as follows:  “…exhibit high oil-to-gas ratios (Smith and Jones, 1999).”
• THREE OR MORE AUTHORS:  Use et al., rather than “and others”—e.g., “Jones et al. (2000) determined that….”  Do not italicize et al. or otherwise “flag” it.  We will search them out ourselves.  Note that et (complete word) has no trailing period, whereas al. (abbreviation for "alii") does!

When in doubt refer to the AAPG guidelines: http://www.aapg.org/pubs/guidelines.cfm 

ILLUSTRATION GUIDELINES

• FILE FORMAT:  It is required that all illustrations be digitally in one of the following format:  WMF, EMF, TIFF, EPS, and/or BITMAP (300 dpi minimum).  Any other formats invariably cause problems, and what you think will be printed will not be printed—and any other formats, including PowerPoint, will not be accepted.  It is your responsibility to get your illustrations into a proper format—though if you have questions regarding a specific application, please contact the format editor, James Willis at gcagstech@msn.com, and he should be able to help you directly or forward your question to someone who can.  EACH FIGURE MUST BE SAVED AS A SEPARATE FILE AS DESCRIBED BELOW UNDER FILE SUBMISSION DETALS.  For vector-type formats, please send a note as to original source program, and fonts used, so that we can ensure proper reproduction.

• HARD-COPY PRINT:  For each illustration, we require a hard-copy print to be submitted with the digital file, as a proof check against digital transfer and editing.  Please submit each figure on a separate page, at the same size/resolution as the digital version, with figure number clearly indicated (legible handwritten number in upper left corner is fine).

• SIZES:  Figure sizes (don’t forget that figure captions take up space too) should not exceed 8 inches in height nor 6.25 inches in width.  Landscape options are available.

• RESOLUTION:  Resolution should be 300 dpi minimum for TIFF images—lower is grainy, higher that 600 dpi probably unnecessary.  It is better to set the figure size first, then set the resolution (often during export). 

• SCANS:  Only high-quality scans will be accepted.  They must be properly cropped, oriented, “cleaned-up,” etc.

• EXTRANEOUS INFORMATION:  Do NOT include author name(s); company name(s)/logo(s); Figure label, except A, B, C, etc. if appropriate (the figure is labeled in the caption); extraneous white space.

• BLACK-AND-WHITE VERSUS COLOR:  Because the CD-ROM will be produced in Color, we recommend submission of color illustrations.  However, the printed copy will be produced in B&W, thus you should print out a copy of your color illustration to be sure that colors reproduce in legible B&W tones.  We will accept only one copy of an illustration, preferably color.
  

FIGURE CAPTION FORMAT

• For general text formatting, follow the directions above within General Digital Format of All Text Material.

• All figure captions will be placed in a separate file from the manuscript text.  See section below on file submission and naming convention.

• The word "Figure" will be spelled out, followed by the figure number, then a period, two spaces, then caption text—e.g., “Figure 1.  Map of study area….”  Often a figure caption will include a reference; use reference citation guidelines under Manuscript Text Guidelines and Organization.

• If figure has been modified from another source, you are still required to cite the original references.  Note that "(from Smith, 1990)" indicates direct re-use of Smith's figure (with appropriate copyright permission) and "(after Smith, 1990)" indicates that the figure has been modified.

TABLE GUIDELINES

• We will accept tables in either Word or Excel format only.  If this poses a problem for you, please consult with the editor.

• The table should have a title or caption, much like a figure caption.  Often this is treated as the first “cell” of the table.  Alternately if you desire the caption to be separate, please submit an additional file with Table captions, following guidelines of the Figure captions.

• Make sure that the table dimension, including table caption, does not exceed 8 in by 6.25 in.

• As with illustrations, we require a printed proof copy of all tables, each on a separate page, clearly labeled.

FILE AND PAPER COPY SUBMISSION

• DIGITAL MANUSCRIPT FILE:

• When emailing digital manuscript please put “2009GCAGS-lead author’s last name” on the subject line of the email.
• Submit a digital version in Word format, entitled: 
• authorlastname1.doc    if one author
• authorlastname1.and.authorlastname2.doc  if two authors
• authorlastname1.et.al.doc   if 3 or more authors.
• If you have more than one paper, please add designator, e.g., “…paper2.doc.”
• Be sure to change “authorlastname1” to the first author’s actual last name, and so on!  If more than 3 authors, only list the first three.  If author list is the same for more than one paper, we will have already provided you with a paper designation system.

• PAPER COPY OF MANUSCRIPT TEXT:  Your PAPER COPY TEXT will be DOUBLE SPACED for easier edit.  Select all text (Ctrl-A or Edit > Select All), then go to Format menu > Paragraph… > Change line spacing to Double.  Print out two copies of the manuscript.  We want the digital file in single-spaced format, and the printed copy in double-spaced format.

• DIGITAL FIGURE CAPTION FILE: 

Submit a digital version in Word format, entitled:  captions.authorname(s).doc    Follow similar guideline as text file on author listing.

• PAPER COPY OF FIGURE CAPTIONS:  Select all text (Ctrl-A or Edit > Select All), then go to Format menu > Paragraph… > Change line spacing to Double.  Print out two copies of the manuscript.  We want the digital file in single space, and the printed copy for editing in double space.

• DIGITAL FIGURE FILES:  Submit a digital file in the appropriate format, size, and resolution for each figure, using a naming convention as follows:  figure1.authorname(s), figure2…, and so on.

• PAPER COPY OF FIGURES:  Print out each figure on a separate sheet at its final size and orientation (portrait or landscape).  Be sure to label each figure sheet accordingly.

• DIGITAL TABLE FILES:  Submit a digital file in the appropriate format and size for each table, using a naming convention as follows:  table1.authorlastname1.authorlastname2.authorlastname3, table2…, and so on.

• PAPER COPY OF TABLES:  Print out each table on a separate sheet at its final size and orientation (portrait or landscape).  Be sure to label each table sheet accordingly.

FINAL EDITED MANUSCRIPT DEADLINE:
 1 June 2009 POSTMARK DATE

THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE DEADLINE!
Please submit your manuscripts early [1 March if possible] to help us all meet that goal.