The
Energy Minerals Division's technical program for the annual
meeting in Dallas April 18-21 brings the latest research findings
and up-to-date information on commodities and topics of EMD interest.
Creties
Jenkins and Ron Grubbs were primarily responsible for the program,
so thanks to them for their fine work.
The EMD
leadership/business meeting will be held on Saturday, April 17,
from 5-8 p.m. at the Hyatt Reunion Hotel. Details of the EMD program
and paper abstracts can be assessed on the AAPG Web site.
Here are
some highlights of the technical program:
EMD's program starts with a pre-convention
short course on Sunday, April 18, at the Dallas Convention Center,
titled "Advances in Coalbed Methane Exploration and Development:
A Review of Coalbed Methane Potential and Opportunities in North
America." If you are involved in this field of work, this course
will be informative, educational and beneficial, so sign
up early.
There
are three oral
sessions on Monday (morning and afternoon) on "Gas Hydrate Exploitation,
Sediment Strength and Slope Instability Along Continental Margins"
(EMD/SEPM).
A
poster session
on this topic is set for Tuesday morning, and an afternoon oral
session on Monday on "Unconventional Gas" (AAPG/EMD) will be followed
by a poster session on Tuesday morning.
Also
on Tuesday morning are three additional poster
sessions: A "CO2 Sequestration" (DEG/SEPM/EMD) poster,
followed by an oral session on the same topic. The other two poster
sessions are "Environmental Geology and Geochemistry" (DEG/EMD)
and "Advances and Applications in Non-Seismic Methods: Remote Sensing,
GPR and GIS" (EMD).
A forum
on "The Future of Global Energy: Technical, Environmental, Economic
and Policy Issues" (DEG/SEPM/EMD) is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon
as is a poster
session titled "New Advances in Geothermal Energy."
Wednesday
features two poster
sessions: "Oil Sands and Other Unconventional Oil Plays" (EMD),
and "Sedimentary Geology of Coal Bearing Strata" (SEPM/EMD).
The
EMD Luncheon and Awards
will begin at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Dallas Convention Center,
featuring P. Patrick Leahy, associate director for geology, U.S.
Geological Survey, who will speak on "The USGS Role in Preparing
for the Energy Mix of the Future."
I urge
convention attendees and especially EMD members to sign up early
for this event and make it a resounding success.
As reported
in the January EXPLORER, our Honorary Membership award will be presented
to Douglas C. Peters; the Distinguished Service award will be given
to Thomas E. Ewing and Michael A. Wiley; the Past President awardee
is Rebecca Dodge; and EMD Certificate of Merit winners are Dennis
L. Nielson, Dennis McMurdie and Gayle H. "Scott" McColloch Jr.
EMD awards
also will be given for presentations at last year's annual meeting
in Salt Lake City. Those winners include:
-
Frank
Kottlowski Memorial Presentation Award (best paper) —
to Jack C. Pashin, Marcella R. McIntyre and R.E. Carroll, for
"Defining the Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Window for Coalbed
Methane Reservoirs in the Black Warrior Basin: Implications
for Carbon Sequestration and Enhanced Coalbed Methane Recovery."
-
Best Poster Award
— to Adam R. VanHolland, for "Coal Stratigraphy of the Southern
Powder River Basin: Converse County, Wyoming."
-
President's Certificate of Excellence in Presentation (oral
presentation)
— to Jonathan M. Pearce, T.J. Shepherd, J.P. Girard, Y.M. Le
Nindre, S.J. Kemp, H. Pauwels and I. Czernichowski, for "CO2
-Pore Water-Rock Interactions from Natural CO2
Gas Pools."
-
President's Certificate of Excellence in Presentation
(oral) — to James W. Johnson, J.J. Nitao, S.C. Blair
and J.P. Morris, for "CO2 Reservoirs: Are they Natural
Analogs to Engineered Geologic Storage Sites?"
-
President's Certificate of Excellence in Presentation (oral)
— to Amy E. Whitaker and J. Caldaro-Baird, for "A Methodology
to Predict Fracture Permeability at Depth in Coalbed Methane
Prospects, with the Ferron Coal, Utah as an Example."
-
President's Certificate of Excellence in Presentation
(poster) — to William J. Winters, W.F. Waite, D.H. Mason,
I. Novosel, O.M. Boldina, S.R. Dallimore, T.S. Collett, T.D.
Lorenson, C.K. Paull, R.E. Rogers, W.R. Bryant and T.M. McGee,
for "Physical Properties of Sediment Containing Natural and
Laboratory-Formed Gas Hydrates."
-
President's Certificate of Excellence in Presentation
(poster) — to Robert B. Hunter, S.A. Digert, R.R. Casavant,
T.S. Collett, S.L. Patil, R.A. Johnson, M.M. Poulton, C.E. Glass,
K.M. Mallon and A. Dandekar, for "Resource Characterization
and Quantification of Natural Gas-Hydrate and Associated Free-Gas
Accumulations, Prudhoe Bay — Kuparuk River Area, North Slope
of Alaska."
-
President's Certificate of Excellence in Presentation (poster)
— to Harry Roberts, J.M. Coleman, J.M. Hunt, W.W. Shedd and
R. Sassen, for "Seafloor and Subsurface Geology of Gas Hydrate
Exposure Sites — Northern Gulf of Mexico Continental Slope."
The
final EMD event will be a post-convention
field trip starting on Wednesday evening and ending late Thursday.
This field trip, led by Brian Cardott and Jeffrey Levine, will provide
an "Overview of Coal and Coalbed Methane in the Arkoma Basin, Eastern
Oklahoma."
EMD, working
together with the other AAPG divisions and SEPM, has brought you
this wide-ranging and diverse program. Thanks to all who have worked
to put this all together.
As always,
we need judges
for the EMD sessions — so, please, volunteer to be a judge and
indicate your commitment on the registration form.
We look
forward to seeing you all in Dallas for our technical offerings.