An ongoing aggressive and focused effort to provide AAPG’s popular Distinguished Lecture program to all parts of the planet is taking a giant step forward this year.
This year’s DL international effort, funded largely by the AAPG Foundation, will offer six lecturers and one new Distinguished Instructor who together will be covering 17 different talks, spread out over almost every Region under the AAPG banner.
Only Latin America is unrepresented at this time – and officials say that’s just a temporary status.
The seven new names, when added to the 10 domestic speakers who began their season last fall, makes this year’s DL program the largest in Association history.
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.
This year’s program, as in past years, offers speakers from both industry and academia, all offering topics that are targeted specifically for their Region.
Also, support for some tours comes directly from specifically designated funds from the AAPG Foundation. This year they are:
The Roy M. Huffington Distinguished Lecturer – An international tour provided by contributions from the Huffington family in honor of the oilman-geologist.
This year’s Huffington Lecturer is Ole J. Martinsen, with Statoil Hydro Research in Bergen, Norway. He’s one of two lecturers set for the Asia-Pacific Region, and he’ll be offering two talks:
- “Deepwater Sedimentary Processes and Systems: The Role of Internal vs. External Controls on Lithology Distribution and Stratigraphy.”
- “Sequence Stratigraphy 25 Years Down-the-Road: Technology Dependencies, Current Practices and Evolving Methods for Prediction of Petroleum Systems.”
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 Frans S. Van Buchem, with Maersk Oil Qatar AS in Doha, Qatar. He’ll be touring the Middle East Region, offering two talks:
- “Barremian/Aptian Carbonate Systems of the Eastern Arabian Plate – A Global Sequence Stratigraphic Reference Model.”
- “Stratigraphic Patterns in Carbonate Source Rock Distribution – With Special Attention to Cretaceous Intrashelf Basins of the Southern Arabian Plate.”
The remaining lecturers, by the Region they’ll be touring, are:
Asia-Pacific Region
Dale R. Issler, Geological Survey of Canada, Calgary, Canada, who offers two talks:
- “Integrated Thermal History Analysis of Sedimentary Basins Using Multi-Kinetic Apatite Fission Track Thermochronology: Examples from Northern Canada.”
- “Quantitative Analysis of Petroleum Systems of the Beaufort-Mackenzie Basin, Arctic Canada: A Multi-Parameter Investigation.”
Europe Region
John G. Kaldi, Australian School of Petroleum, University of Adelaide, Australia. He’ll offer five lecture options:
- “Carbon Capture and Geological Storage: What are the Big Issues and Opportunities?”
- “CO2 Storage Capacity Estimation and Site Selection.”
- “Evaluating Seal Potential for Hydrocarbon Accumulations.
- “Pore-level Reservoir Characterization.
- “Geological Applications of Capillary Pressure: Taking the Mystery out of Basic Rock Properties.”
Kenneth E. Peters, Schlumberger and Stanford University, California. He’ll offer two lectures:
- “Establishing Petroleum Systems: Biomarkers, Isotopes and Chemometrics.”
- “Exploration Paradigm Shift: The Dynamic Petroleum System Concept.”
Middle East Region
Christian J. Heine, Saudi Aramco, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He’ll offer two lectures:
- “The Unayzah Reservoirs: A Post Glacial Sea-Level Rise Preserves in Rock the Northward Movement of the Arabian Plate from Glacially Incised Valleys Through an Early Permian, Mid-Latitude Desert.”
- “Where Does Up-Scaling Begin? Facies-Based Object Modeling and Externally Derived Attribute Histograms Put Geology Back into Geostatistics.”
This year’s International Distinguished Instructor is Mark G. Rowan, of Rowan Consulting Inc., in Boulder, Colo. He’ll offer two course options:
- A one-day course on “Salt Tectonics of Passive Margins.”
- A two-day course titled “Global Salt Tectonics.”
Tour details will be announced as they become available in future EXPLORERs and on the AAPG Web site. For more information contact the AAPG education department.