A North Sea Millennium Atlas is due to be published next year as a millennium gift from geologists to the general public.
With Statoil as one of its principal sponsors, this volume will weigh almost 10 kilograms - in part because it features a number of three-dimensional seismic maps.
Information on 270 oil and gas wells and the geological history of the North Sea basin are also among its contents.
A CD-Rom version is also planned, and both versions will be published only in English.
The work provides a unified, up-to-date source of data which will allow many non-geologists to participate in the exciting 35-year history of the North Sea oil era, says area geologist Tore Husmo in Exploration & Production Norway.
More than 20 oil companies are backing the project, along with professional geo-scientists from universities and government agencies in Norway, Denmark and the UK.
Statoil personnel are involved in writing five of the 21 planned chapters, and the group has principal responsibility for the section on the Lower and Middle Jurassic periods.