Response to Lee Gerhard’s “Going Quietly into the Night”
I was greatly dismayed to read the commentary “Going Quietly into the Night” by Lee C. Gerhard in the July 2024 EXPLORER.
The AAPG is a science-based organization as described by its constitution – see page 25 of the President’s Column in the same issue of the EXPLORER. Yet this commentary is an anti-science polemic – dissembling cherry-picked measurements out of context, and then falsely stating:
“Any global increase in carbon dioxide will be beneficial and have nearly no impact on future temperature.”
This statement denies many decades of geological climate science ignoring the well-established link between carbon dioxide levels and climate change seen repeatedly in the geologic record. And although “…cold kills,” heat kills many, many more people. However, I will agree with the author when he states:
“…to inflict suffering upon society through ignorance of science is deplorable.”
I have been a member of AAPG since 1980 and remember other anti-science commentaries in the EXPLORER always hiding behind the lame shield of the Editor’s Note. Each time the AAPG lost respect in the world of science even as it claims to be an organization whose primary goal is to promote the science of geology. I fear the AAPG will be diminished by such commentaries and membership will continue to decline as it struggles to attract young geoscientists who will be knowledgeable in geologic climate science. As an emeritus AAPG member I too wonder if I now belong to an anti-science organization.
As in the past, I question the wisdom of publishing such commentaries considering the damage to the reputation (perhaps even to the future) of the AAPG.
Russell Perigo
Emeritus member AAPG
What is ‘Lame’ about the Editor’s Note?
“Editor’s Note: As in any commentary published in the AAPG EXPLORER, the opinions expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the EXPLORER staff or of AAPG collectively, nor its leaders.”
AAPG is a diverse organization with a diverse range of opinions among its members. As the editor of its flagship magazine, it isn’t my place to decide whose opinions are valid and deserve a hearing and whose are beyond the pale and should be ignored and marginalized into silence. As the Editor’s Note explains, publishing a member and/or reader’s opinion absolutely does not constitute an endorsement. (Also, and even more importantly, since we’re on the subject – our coverage of a topic in the magazine also does not constitute promotion or activism or endorsement of any kind. We’re just reporting on what is happening in the world and in the industry. We’re not offering moral evaluations or telling you how to feel about it.)
Our nation and the scientific enterprise itself are both predicated on the principle that the answer to speech you don’t like is not to censor it, so that only the opinions you agree with are heard. The answer is more speech. The great thing about the Commentary section of the EXPLORER is that if you don’t like an opinion you read there – not only are you alerted to the fact that at least some of your fellow AAPG members hold that opinion, but now you have the opportunity to respond with corrections, whereas otherwise, you’d never know the correction is needed, because the topic was never raised for discussion, because we treated it as taboo. That actually would be “anti-science.”
Brian Ervin
EXPLORER Managing Editor
Not Enough ‘Exploration’ in the EXPLORER
Please accept my highest compliments on your latest issue of the AAPG EXPLORER. Its contents track the high standards established by the AAPG decades ago. The 8½-by-11-inch format is much more usable.
Since the inception of the EXPLORER, I have enjoyed it, but with a measure of grief, if you will. I see the title, “Explorer,” but I see little references to current drilling in strange places, or discoveries, or any exploration per se. Instead, though excellent, there is an abundance of articles on technology, or broad-brush basin analyses. I have dismissed the urge to write you since its inception, for various reasons. I can hold my disappointments no longer; so whether you publish this letter is moot.
Since the early ‘00s, the mania with horizontal drilling has not only absorbed the conventional venture capital of the industry, it has eliminated exploration in the true sense of the word. Discoveries in stricto sensu have largely been replaced by the latest hot-off-the-press horizontal or technical news.
An oil discovery, like any hidden truth, is the intuitive extraction of a pattern from the non-obvious. Intellectual data/facts, technology included, are nothing more than that – obvious intellectual data. Moreover, they are servants to the intuition, not vice versa, as Einstein quipped. Technology, like all pure data and facts, is a tool and a tool only.
The reason technology cannot find new oil is that it is intellectual, and in the majority digital; digital imprints override intuitive perception.
My present age is 81, having been a true wildcatter since 1970. To put the above comments in context, allow me to recount two of many characteristic events which hopefully make my point as to intuitive reasoning in oil discoveries.
Some years ago, from one offhand comment, I “saw” a very large submarine fan, down-dip from a well-defined shelf edge. Existing updip well data was mapped, gravity obtained and interpreted. The gravity data indicated only the obvious; but underneath the obvious was a hidden pattern. From this pattern two large anomalies were detected and leased, later seismic confirmed the structures. The 8000 A and 11,000 A blocks were sold to a large independent, and the well was drilled to 21,450 feet, encountering a 250-foot porous sand. The well was opened up on a 4/64-inch choke, and flowed 10 MMCGPD with over 11,000# FTP, 23,000# BHSIP. The ground shook as I watched the large flare roar across the reserve pit. There are no words to describe the feeling.
The second was in eastern Tennessee, with a man I had never met, a formation and state in which I had never drilled. A well had blown out, filling a 1,000 bbl reserve pit in less than one hour, then spilling over the dam into a wild and scenic river. The man I had never met contacted me and he listened to my analysis. We procured remote sensing data (there were no nearby wells), I mapped the topography, blended it with the remote sensing data, and made an intuitive interpretation. I “saw” where the oil would probably be, then we air-drilled a 2,500-foot well. We encountered pay at 2,300 feet, completed the well for 50 bbl/hour with 750# FTP and an unknown large quantity of gas. To hear oil banging against the walls of four 220 bbl tanks with 750# will get your blood running fast. You learn to trust your gut.
All this from an intuitive perspective.
Few use this intuitive ability; those that do have a fire in their eyes that belies analysis. Tex Moncrief had that fire in his eyes; he made a large discovery in south Louisiana when he was 100 years old. Mike Halbouty had that fire; Dan Brown, Paul Jackson and Gene McLeod with Placid had it. John Palmer from Shreveport had it and made a bunch of discoveries. So did A.W. Tozer and Dan Busch of AAPG fame; I knew him.
Arthur Helps said in the 1800s, “When the soul (intuition) abdicates, the intellect rules.” Abdication from our intuition has followed the siren of technology; or better said, the profligate penchant for technology has assassinated intuition as the driving force behind our progress in all fields. This abdication has resulted in our failure to be the creator of ideas we were designed to be.
Respectfully,
L.F. Berry, CPG 5130
[email protected]