A world at war, a deadly epidemic of global
proportions and other catastrophic events teamed up to disrupt in
part AAPG’s Distinguished
Lecture program last year -- but the train is back on track.
The program, funded by the AAPG Foundation, will
offer eight domestic and five international speakers this season,
including four international tours that were either cancelled or
delayed last year due to uncertain or threatening conditions.
In fact, the Distinguished Lecture season is scheduled
to begin this month in South America with a talk that was originally
slated for last season, presented by Charles Kluth.
Remaining on track this year is the continuation
of AAPG-SPE and AAPG-SEG intersociety lecturer effort, a cooperative
program that presents an opportunity for cross-discipline lectures.
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.
•
The AAPG-SPE Joint Distinguished Lecture speaker -- second
in the series -- will be AAPG award-winning member Wolfgang
E. Schollnberger, vice president of technology for BP in
Sunbury, England. His lecture will be "E-Field: Combining in Real-Time
a Deep Look Into Reservoirs With a Deep Look Into Markets."
Schollnberger will be speaking twice to groups in
North America -- once in November and on another tour in January.
•
The AAPG-SEG Joint Distinguished Lecture speaker -- fifth
in the series -- will be Steven
R. May, with ExxonMobil Upstream Research in Houston. His
lecture will be "Visualization and Volume Interpretation in Geoscience:
3-D Seismic and Beyond."
As in past years, support for several 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, funded by contributions from longtime
Tulsa geologist Allan Bennison, who now resides in Glass Valley,
Calif.
This year’s Bennison lecturer will be Luis
Pomar, a professor with the Universitat de les Illes Balears,
Palma de Mallorca, Spain. His topics are:
- "Types of Carbonate Platforms -- A Genetic Approach."
- "Reservoir-Scale Heterogeneity of Carbonate Platforms -- Some
Constraints from the Miocene of the Balearic Islands."
•
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 Anthony
Sprague, with ExxonMobil Upstream Research, Houston. His
topic will be "Physical Stratigraphy of Clastic Strata: A Hierarchical
Approach to the Analysis of Genetically Related Stratigraphic Elements
for Improved Reservoir Prediction."
•
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 David
W. Bowen, associate research professor, Montana State University,
Bozeman, Mont. His lecture is "Understanding the Impact of Variations
in Incised Valley Fill Systems on Reservoir Development: Examples
from the Pennsylvanian and Cretaceous Strata of the Rocky Mountain
Region."
•
The Roy M. Huffington Distinguished Lecturer -- An international
tour, provided by contributions from the Huffington family in honor
of the oilman-geologist.
The Huffington lecture tour was cancelled last year,
so this year it is once again slated to be presented by Charles
F. Kluth, Denver consultant who was formerly with ChevronTexaco,
San Ramon, Calif. Kluth’s tour of South America is slated for Sept.
8-19, and his topic is "Fun With Dip! The Predictive Use of Dip
Data to Improve the Interpretation of Fold Traps."
•
The Dean A. McGee International Distinguished Lecturer --
Provided by contributions from Kerr-McGee, which annually supports
international speaking tours.
This year’s McGee lecturer is AAPG award winner Wolfgang
Schlager, professor emeritus at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam,
Netherlands, and external professor for sedimentology, University
of Salzburg, Austria. He is scheduled to tour western Europe in
November 2004.
His topics are:
- "Carbonate Rocks -- From Factories to Sequences."
- "Order Versus Fractals in Sequence Stratigraphy."
This year’s list of domestic Distinguished Lecturers
also includes:
• Richard J. Behl,
associate professor, California State University, Long Beach. His
topics are:
- "Methane Hydrates and Climate Change: The Clathrate Gun Hypothesis."
- "Miocene Monterey Formation of California: Plankton to Petroleum,
Source to Reservoir."
• Linda M. Bonnell,
president and scientific adviser, Geocosm LLC, Austin, Texas, and
research fellow, Bureau of Economic Geology, the University of Texas,
Austin. Her topics are:
- "Sealed, Bridged or Open -- A New Theory of Quartz Cementation
in Fractures."
- "Reservoir Quality Prediction in Deep Water to Tight Gas Sandstones
Using a Process/Stochastic Modeling Approach."
• Bruce D.
Trudgill, associate professor, Colorado School of Mines,
Golden, Colo. His topics are:
- "Unraveling the Complexities of Salt Basins Through the Integration
of 3-D Seismic Analysis, Field Studies and Structural Restoration."
- "Canyonlands Grabens of Southeast Utah: A Natural Laboratory
for Understanding Fault Growth."
This year’s international Distinguished Lecturers
also include three speakers whose tours were cancelled last year.
They are:
• Gordon Knox,
consultant, Balzan, Malta. His tour is scheduled for November, and
he will visit groups in southeast Asia, China and Indonesia.
His topics are:
- "Subsurface Risk and Uncertainty Assessment in Petroleum Exploration
-- The Challenges."
- "Ways of Working and Organization in Exploration."
• Rick Sarg,
stratigraphy coordinator, ExxonMobil Exploration, Houston. He is
scheduled to tour the Middle East in January, and will offer three
topics:
- "Carbonate Sequence Stratigraphy -- Future Directions for Exploration
and Development."
- "Predictability of the Stratigraphic Record from the Outcrop
to Multiple Seismic Attributes -- Past, Present and Future."
- "Sequence Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Economic Importance
of Evaporites and Evaporite-Carbonate Transitions."
• A.M. Celal
Sengor, with the Technical University of Instanbul, Turkey,
who will tour central Asia and eastern Europe in the spring of 2004.
He will offer two topics:
- "Tectonic Evolution of the Altaids and Continental Evolution
in Asia in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic."
- "Tectonic Evolution of the Tethysides."