The Digital Rocks Portal was released in 2015. Our mission is to organize and preserve  imaged datasets and experimental measurements of porous materials in subsurface (such as rocks and soil), connect them to simulation and analysis, as well as educate the research community by organizing workshops and mini-courses. Flow, transport and deformation processes arise routinely in the subsurface, and understanding these processes on multiple time and length scales can inform important decisions in environmental, civil, and petroleum engineering as well as address key geological questions. Examples include containing the spread of toxins or harmful bacteria in watersheds; designing safe dams; improving recovery of hydrocarbons; fracturing and understanding the history of rock formation.

As of Dec 21, 2021, we have 148 projects and 189 related publications!

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In the news

Newsletters

Follow this link for a complete archive and ability to sign up for newsletters (initiated in October 2020). 

Team

The portal is managed by Dr Masa Prodanovic, Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, and uses computing resources from the University of Texas System Research Cyberinfrastructure and the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

Current team (as of April 2021) includes Dr. Maria Esteva (data curation), Andrew Magill and Keith Strmiska (project implementation), Javier Estrada Santos and Hasan Khan (project curation, digital marketing), Anuradha Radhakrishnan and Ankita Singh (digital marketing).

Past team members: Christopher Landry, Linli Ding, Mary Pettengil, Matthew Hanlon, Ashvini Venkatesh, Aditi Ranganath, Prateel Agarwal, Gaurav Nanda.

Cite Us

To reference this portal in any form of publication, please use the following citation: 

Masa Prodanovic, Maria Esteva, Matthew Hanlon, Gaurav Nanda, Prateek Agarwal (2015) Digital Rocks Portal: a repository for porous media images http://dx.doi.org/10.17612/P7CC7K

Affiliates: connections that make sure your data will be discoverable

We are part of EarthCube collaborative to enhance access to Geoscience data, models and resources.

We are member of the EarthCube Council of Data Facilities.

We are registered in Registry of Research Data Repositories.

We are a registered data repository for Geosciences Data Journal.

Funding

We moved to a community-supported funding in Sept 2021 in our transition to sustainability. Please read more in the user agreement.

Foundational development of this portal was obtained through the National Science Foundation, NSF EAR CAREER grant 1255622 "Advanced interface methods in heterogeneous porous materials: a multi-disciplinary and multi-scale framework." as well as NSF EarthCube IA 1541008 from 2015-18. Since the end of 2018, limited support is available through the industry affiliate program (PI Prodanovic). All are greatfully acknowledged.

Programming support has been provided by the Texas Advanced Computing Center and the administrative support by Center for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering (now Center for Subsurface Energy and the Environment).

Feedback

Please use this form to provide feedback (anonymous, if desired).

Publications, Presentations and Tutorials

Webinars:

3. "Creating a digital environment that combines data, simulation, and machine learning in porous media", Center for the Subsurface Energy and the Environment webinar, Apr 9, 2021

2. "Connecting data, algorithms and community in digital rock physics" Data Science for Materials Discovery I-AIM seminar, Oct 9, 2020

1. "What does it take to automate digital rock petrophysics?", GeoScience and GeoEnergy Webinar, organized by TU Delft and Heriot Watt University, Aug 6, 2020

Visualization tutorials (min-course videos and code, etc) are linked to the visualization challenge webpage.

Other presentations:

21. Prodanovic, Masa; Radhakrishnan, Anuradha; McClure, James (2021): Visualization and reuse competition for Digital Rocks Portal datasets. figshare. Poster. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14818584.v1 

20. “What does it take to automate digital rocks petrophysics?”, invited lecture, PetroBras, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Aug 2, 2019

19. “Storage, visualization and simulation using data in Digital Rocks Portal”, invited presentation, session H44F, AGU Fall Meeting, Washington, DC, December 2018

18. “Digital Rocks Portal: analysis, curation, visualization and flow simulation based on images of rock microstructure”, keynote speaker, TACCSTER 2018, Symposium of Texas Researchers, Texas Advanced Computing Center, Austin, Texas, September 20, 20

17. Analysis, Curation and Visualization in Digital Rocks Portal and Applications in Estimation of Flow Properties in Heterogeneous Rocks”, Schlumberger, Sugar Land, TX, Feb 23, 2018

16. "Exemplifying digital rocks portal data management, visualization and simulation apability through a rough fracture permeability study", C. Landry, A. Tokan-Lawal, P. Eichhubl, M. Prodanovic, M. Esteva, R. Ketcham, Tomography for Scientific Advancement (ToSCA) conference, Austin, TX, June 8, 2017

15. “Digital Rocks Portal: a Sustainable Platform for Sharing, Translation, and Analysis of Volumetric Data of Porous Media”, R. Verma, Josue B. Balandrano, M. Prodanovic, M. Esteva and R. Ketcham, Poster and demo, EarthCube All Hands Meeting, Seattle, WA, June 8, 2017

14. "Imagining and developing infrastructure for data-driven geosciences and engineering research and education", M. Esteva, CARIUSA, Kingston, Jamaica, March 2017

13. “Digital Rocks Portal: Preservation, Sharing, Remote Visualization and Automated Analysis of Imaged Datasets”, poster presentation   H51B-1443 in Moscone South Poster Hall, American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA, Friday, Dec 16, 2017, 8-noon.

12. "Managing, Analyzing and Publishing Data with Digital Rocks Portal", Maša Prodanović, Maria Esteva and Mary Pettengill, workshop, San Francisco Marriott Marquis, 780 Mission Street - Yerba Buena Salon 1, San Francisco, CA, Dec 15 2016, 8-10am. Materials:

Presentation by Masa Prodanovic

Presentation by Maria Esteva

11. "Digital Rocks Portal Live Demo", 3pm, Dec 15, 2016, NSF Earthcube   Booth, Exhibition Hall, AGU Fall meeting.

10. “Digital Rocks Portal: preservation, sharing, and automated analysis of imaged datasets”, C. Landry, Formation Evaluation Industry Consortium, University of Texas at Austin, August 16, 2016

9. “Digital Rocks Portal: sustainable platform for imaged dataset sharing, preservation and automated analysis”, M. Prodanovic, Poster and demo, EarthCube All Hands Meeting, Denver, CO, July 7, 2016

8. “Digital rocks physics: true-to-geometry modeling of porous media”, M. Prodanovic, Petroleum Engineering Summer School Workshop 41, Dubrovnik, Croatia, June 7-10, 2016

7. “Digital Rocks Portal: an open repository for sharing, automated translation, and analysis of volumetric images”, M. Hanlon, Open Repositories 2016 Conference, Dublin, Ireland, June 14, 2016

6. “Digital Rocks Portal: sustainable platform for imaged dataset sharing, preservation and automated analysis”, M. Prodanovic, 2nd Annual UT Digital Preservation Symposium, University of Texas at Austin, April 29, 2016

5. “Digital Rocks Portal: a sustainable platform for imaged dataset sharing, translation and automated analysis”, M. Prodanovic, Chemical EOR Industry Consortium, University of Texas at Austin, April 25, 2014

4.     “Digital Rocks Portal: a sustainable platform for imaged dataset sharing and image-based simulation”, M. Prodanovic, TCAT Workshop, University of  North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Jan 13, 2016

3.     “Digital Rocks Portal: a sustainable platform for imaged dataset sharing, translation and automated analysis”, M. Prodanovic, Invited oral presentation, minisymposium MR43A-02, AGU Fall Meeting, Dec 2015, San Francisco, CA

2. “Digital Rocks Portal: a sustainable platform for imaged dataset sharing and scientific cross-validation”, M. Prodanovic, DOE Workshop on Digital Rocks Physics and 3D Printing, Aug 3, 2015, Santa Fe, NM

1. "Digital Rocks Portal for Fast Storage and Retrieval of Porous Microstructure Images." J. Rigelo. Presentation in Minisymposium MS27 “Combining Experiment, Theory and Computation to Improve Multiscale Understanding of Porous Medium Systems”, SIAM Conference on Mathematical & Computational Issues in the Geosciences. June 29 – July 2, 2015 

http://meetings.siam.org/sess/dsp_talk.cfm?p=70551