It’s varied, it’s creative, it’s comprehensive and, in terms of sheer size and aspirations, it’s an effort of near-historic proportions.
It is this year’s AAPG Distinguished Lecture program, the Association’s flagship initiative for spreading the latest in science, technology and professional information.
This year’s DL program, funded largely by the AAPG Foundation, will offer 10 domestic lecturers – one of the largest numbers of domestic speakers in the program’s history.
International lecturers and this year’s Distinguished Instructor lineup are yet to be announced.
The ambitious domestic tours start in September.
It’s all part of a concentrated effort to make information and expertise available to as many geoscience groups as possible.
AAPG’s DL program was developed to expose students, young geologists, college faculty members and members of geological societies to current information, research and thinking.
Last season’s speakers (both domestic and international) appeared at about 150 universities and societies, reaching an estimated 8,000 people.
This year’s program, as in past years, offers speakers from both industry and academia, covering topics that range from reservoir modeling to the role of outcrop models on subsurface characterization of deepwater reservoirs to microseismic opportunities to the consequences of climate in Tibet.
Something familiar about this year’s lineup is the continuation of the intersociety lecturer effort – a cooperative program that presents an opportunity for cross-discipline lectures.
This year’s AAPG/SEG Intersociety Lecturer, seventh in the series is Peter M. Duncan, president of MicroSeismic Inc., Houston. His lecture will be “Aggressively Passive: Microseismic Opportunities Over an Oilfield’s Life.”
Duncan’s tour begins this month and will last through December, eventually visiting at least nine countries.
In keeping with the alternating logistical responsibilities for the intersociety lecturer, his tour will be coordinated by SEG.
Other specially designated lecturers this year include:
- Charles T. Feazel, principal carbonate stratigrapher for ConocoPhillips, Houston, who is this year’s J. Ben Carsey Distinguished Lecturer.
The Carsey lecture is an annual domestic tour provided by contributions from J. Ben Carsey Jr. of Houston, to establish a named lecturer in memory of his father, who served as AAPG president in 1967-68.
Feazel will offer two lectures:
- “Using Modern Cave Systems as Analogs for Paleokarst Reservoirs.”
- “North Sea Chalk: 40 Years of Production at Ekofisk Field From a Rock Some Said Would Never Flow Oil.”
- Marjorie Levy, senior staff research geologist for Chevron Energy Technology Co., San Ramon, Calif., is this year’s Haas-Pratt Distinguished Lecturer.
The Haas-Pratt lecture is a domestic tour provided by contributions from the late Merrill W. Haas, in honor of famed geologist (and Haas’ mentor) Wallace Pratt. The funding is granted for a lecture of an applied nature dealing with the exploration and discovery history of a field or a subject having economic implications.
Her lecture will be “New Petroleum Reservoir Modeling Techniques Improve Field Management and Optimize Recovery.”
- Lynn N. Hughes, a U.S. District Court judge serving in Houston, is this year’s AAPG Distinguished Lecturer on Ethics.
Hughes will be available by request throughout the 2008-09 term, and will be the featured speaker on Oct. 28 at a luncheon in Cape Town, South Africa, during the upcoming AAPG International Conference and Exhibition.
His lecture topic is “Dilemmas of Trust.”
This year’s list of domestic Distinguished Lecturers also includes:
- Gerald Dickens, professor in the department of earth sciences at Rice University, Houston.
His tour of the eastern United States will begin Sept. 29, and he will offer two lectures:
- “Early Cenozoic Climate and Carbon Cycling: The Sedimentary Record of Global Warming and Massive Carbon Input.”
- “The Global Carbon Cycle with Seafloor Methane.”
- Michael H. Gardner, an associate professor at Montana State University, Bozeman, Mont., and geological adviser to Marathon Oil.
He will offer three lectures:
- “Evaluating Source to Sink Controls on the Permian Record of Deep-Water Sedimentation in the Delaware Basin, West Texas, USA.”
- “The Role of Outcrop Models in the Subsurface Characterization of Deep-Water Reservoirs.”
- “Geologic Considerations on Successful Deepwater Exploration and Field Development.”
- Carmala N. Garzione, associate professor in the department of earth and environmental sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y.
She will be offering two lectures:
- “The Role of Outcrop Models in the Subsurface Characterization of Deep-Water Reservoirs.”
- “Modern Rainfall and Paleoclimate Across Northeast Tibet: Climate Consequences of the Growth of the Tibetan Plateau.”
- Susan E. Humphris, with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Mass.
Her lecture will be “Relation Between Volcanism, Tectonism and Hydrothermal Activity Along the Global Mid-Ocean Ridge System.”
- Jim Jennings, principal reservoir engineer, Shell International E&P, Houston.
He will be offering three lectures:
- “Petrophysical Variability, Fluid-Flow Behavior, and the Implications for Analysis and Modeling of Carbonate Reservoirs.”
- “A Geologist’s Introduction to Permeability Averaging and the Effects of Scale on the Permeability of Heterogeneous Rocks.”
- “Fluid Flow in a Touching-Vug Cretaceous Carbonate Outcrop: Measurements and Models from Millimeters to Kilometers.”
- Gene Rankey, with the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan.
He will offer two lectures:
- “Controls on Sedimentology and Geomorphology of Holocene Isolated, Shallow, Tropical Carbonate Platforms: Bahamas and Beyond.”
- “Morphodynamics and Depositional Heterogeneity of Bahamian Holocene Ooid Shoals.”