SENIOR GEOTHERMAL & PETROLEUM GEOSCIENTIST
Dr. Erdlac was born and raised in Brackenridge, Pennsylvania, a small town northeast of Pittsburgh. He has lived in New Orleans and Houston, but has spent most of his professional career in Midland, Texas. He received degrees in Physics (B.S.) and Geology (M.S.) from the University of Pittsburgh and later attended The University of Texas at Austin for a Ph.D. in Structural Geology. Dr. Erdlac conducted field mapping in Guatemala along the Chixoy-Polochic strike-slip fault system for his M.S. degree. He later conducted field mapping in Guatemala along the Chixoy-Polochic strike-slip fault system for his M.S. degree. He later conducted detailed surface mapping north of Big Bend National Park along the Terlingua monocline and uplift, an area of Laramide and Basin and Range age fault movement and folding noted for being the second largest deposit of mercury minerals in the U.S. lower 48.
Dr. Erdlac began his professional career with Gulf Oil Exploration & Production Co. in 1980 as an exploration geophysicist working in the Gulf of Mexico prior to transfer to Midland where he has worked consistently in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico along with conducting other surface and subsurface research and exploratory activities. He has conducted prospect generation in the oil and gas industry using seismic and well log data. He has also carried out regional basin analysis of the deep Delaware Basin in West Texas, with special focus on the regional tectonics of the area. For the last 10+ years Dr. Erdlac has focused on geothermal energy development with the idea of generating electrical power from deep oil and gas wells from unproduced hot water found in water saturated reservoirs. He has published over 100 technical papers, books, abstracts, and posters involving structural geology, oil and gas, and geothermal energy. He has written a number of grants for his own research activities and for various companies seeking funding for geothermal projects. He is the Principal in Erdlac Energy Consulting since 2008. A more detailed description of Dr. Erdlac's career can be found in his Curriculum Vitae.
Dr. Erdlac currently contributes to the I2M geothermal program and the associated property reviews and feasibility studies.
