THE SCIENCE-INDUSTRY INTERFACE IN THE PETROLEUM-INDUSTRY - CORRELATION OF TIME-SERIES OF INDICATORS AND THEIR SPECTRA, AND GROWTH MODELING

Petroleum production and exploration, used as petroleum industry indic ators, and accumulation of petroleum-related geoscience literature, us ed as a science indicator, were compared by several means to gauge the degree of interaction between science and the industry in the period 1934-1990. Methods of comparison employed were: time domain correlatio ns and crosscorrelation; correlations of spectra using coherence and c rosspower spectra, and growth-modelling of the indicators. A fifty-yea r exploration cycle was found, beginning about 1945. Principal feature s of this cycle seem to coincide with prominent features in the time s eries for geoscience literature, and both of these variables are corre lated with petroleum production. All three variables appear to have be en determined ultimately by economic and political events which affect ed the petroleum industry. All of them show long-period cycles which c oincide with the fourth Kondratiev cycle and the beginning of the fift h Kondratiev. The longest time series used (petroleum production in th e United States, 1860-1990) shows long-period cycles matching the thir d, fourth and fifth Kondratiev cycles.