Eleven speakers have been announced for this year’s Distinguished Lecture program, including one speaker who will be making a record-setting fourth turn as a DL speaker.
The DL program, funded in part by the AAPG Foundation, will offer seven domestic and four international speakers this season.
Last season’s slate of seven domestic speakers visited 113 groups and a total audience of 5,715; international statistics brought the total audience to 6,015.
AAPG’s Distinguished Lecture program was developed to expose students, young geologists, college faculty members and members of geological societies to current information, research and thinking.
This year’s line-up includes Henry W. Posamentier, chief geologist and distinguished adviser for Anadarko Petroleum in Calgary, Canada, who in October will be making his fourth DL tour, this time to Europe and eastern Asia.
Posamentier, who also won the 2001 AAPG Matson Award for giving the best paper at the AAPG Annual Convention, previously toured as a DL in 1991-92 (United States), 1996-97 (Former Soviet Union) and 1998-99 (Middle East).
He is this year’s Dean A. McGee Distinguished Lecturer and will be offering two talks this year:
- “Imaging Elements of Depositional Systems from Shelf to Deep Basin Using 3D Seismic Data: Implications for Exploration and Development.”
- “Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Geomorphology of Deepwater Deposits Based on Analysis of 3-D Seismic Data: Reducing the Risk of Lithology Prediction.”
Remaining on track this year is the continuation of the intersociety lecturer effort -- a cooperative program that presents an opportunity for cross-discipline lectures.
This year’s AAPG-SEG Joint Inter-Society Distinguished Lecture -- fifth in the series -- will be given by AAPG member William A. Fahmy, geophysical adviser for ExxonMobil Exploration, Spring, Texas.
Fahmy’s speaking tour began last month and will continue through January, making stops in South America, Mexico, the United States, China and Calgary. His topic is “DHI/AVO Best Practices Methodology and Applications.”
In keeping with the alternating logistical responsibilities for the intersociety lecturer, Fahmy’s tour will be coordinated by SEG.
And as also in past years, support for several specific tours comes directly from the AAPG Foundation’s Distinguished Lecture Fund. They are:
The Allan P. Bennison Distinguished Lecturer -- An international lecturer who makes a U.S. tour, is funded by contributions from the late Allan Bennison, a long-time Tulsa geologist.
This year’s Bennison lecturer will be Jean-Laurent Mallet, professor at the Ecole Nationale Supéieure de Géologie, Nancy, France. His topic is “Integrated Earth Modeling: From Seismic Interpretation to Flow Simulation in Reservoirs.”
The J. Ben Carsey Distinguished Lecturer -- A 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 president of AAPG in 1967-68.
This year’s J. Ben Carsey lecturer is Stephen Creaney, regional geologist and supervisor of the regional studies team in business development, ExxonMobil Exploration, Houston. His topic is “Global Petroleum Evaluation -- The Role of Integrated Regional Analysis.”
The Haas-Pratt Distinguished Lecturer -- 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 emphasis on a specific case history application of geology in a discovery.
The Haas-Pratt lecture will be presented by Marian Warren, geologist, EnCana Corp., Calgary, Canada.
She offers two talks:
“An Exploration Case History: How We Made a High-Impact Gas Discovery in a Maturing Basin (Western Canada).”
“Extensional Faulting, Paleodrainage Patterns and Impact on Hydrocarbon Reservoir Quality and Distribution During Foreland Basin Subsidence: A Case Study from the Cretaceous of Alberta.”
The Roy M. Huffington Distinguished Lecturer -- An international tour, provided by contributions from the Huffington family in honor of the oilman-geologist.
The Huffington speaker will be R. Craig Shipp, team leader, geohazards assessment team, Shell International E&P, Houston.
Shipp will offer two talks:
“Significance and Recognition of Mass-Transport Deposits in Deepwater Environments.”
“Where Offshore Drilling Meets Shallow Geology: Impact of Near-Surface Depositional Systems on Deepwater Operations.”
This year’s list of domestic Distinguished Lecturers also includes:
Steven Bachtel, carbonate reservoir specialist, ConocoPhillips, Houston. His topic is “Seismic Stratigraphy of the Miocene-Pliocene Segitiga Platform, East Natuna Sea Indonesia: The Origin, Growth and Demise of an Isolated Carbonate Platform.”
Timothy H. Dixon, professor, the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. His topics are:
“Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans: Subsidence Measurements from Space.”
“Crustal Deformation Near the San Andreas Fault: Estimating Elastic Parameters of the Upper Crust with Space Geodesy.”
Michael Hudec, research scientist, Bureau of Economic Geology, the University of Texas, Austin, Texas. His two topics are:
“Advance Mechanisms of Allochthonous Salt Sheets: Implications for Predicting Subsalt Pore Pressure.”
“Evolution of Suprasalt Minibasins in the Deepwater Gulf of Mexico.”
Jacob Lowenstern, scientist-in-charge, Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Calif. His talk is on “Intrusion, Deformation and Degassing at the Yellowstone Caldera.”
This year’s other international Distinguished Lecturer is:
Mateu Esteban, external adviser-carbonate geology, REPSOL-YPF, Madrid, Spain. He will be speaking in Amersterdam on Sept. 13-14, and his talk will be “The Burial of Carbonate Reservoirs -- The Rest of the Story.”
For more information on the tours or the program contact Karen J. Dotts in the education department at AAPG headquarters; go to the AAPG Distinguished Lecturer Web pages, and watch for monthly updates in the EXPLORER.