David Green and Brett Larkin

Words by the Late Ken Preston:

Brett Larkin and David Green are the 2024 recipients of the Leichardt Award. They have been awarded this for their work in developing CoalLog. Over time CoalLog has become the standard for coal borehole data collection and presentation in Queensland, New South Wales and most likely, other coal regions around the world.
From the late 1970s, when computer processing of coal borehole data became common practice, until the development of CoalLog in 2012, data dictionaries and data formats used within the coal industry were characterised by a universal lack of order and consistency.
Indeed, within the same organisation each project may well have had a different dictionary/data format. This created significant inefficiencies within and between organisations, hindered ready capture and transferal of data and restricted the ability for government survey organisations to access and publish standardised data.
Whilst the concept of CoalLog is not radical or groundbreaking, the fact that it was developed at all against a widespread acceptance of a lack of standardisation and the lack of a willingness to break away from this muddled approach, is a tribute to the developers and their approach,
which was characterised by the following:

• They identified the problem (basically a complete lack of standardisation) and decided to do something to address it;
• In the 2010-12 period, they consulted with a wide range of industry representatives in its initial design;
• They brought considerable personal expertise and experience to bear to the development;
• They saw the job through and produced a solid product in its first version (2012) and continued to develop it to cover a wider range of data types in what is now V3.1 (2021);
• The product was well documented and widely promoted and made available free to all who want to use it.

In summary it is a clear case of two people identifying a major shortcoming in industry practice and being prepared to conceptualise and see through the development of the robust and widely deployed solution that we know today