Annual Report 2012: FY July 1, 2011-June 30, 2012
Rocky Mountain Section
The Rocky Mountain Section of AAPG represents the more than 3,300 AAPG members residing in the 11 state area of the Section. There are 11 Affiliated Societies within the area. Current officers are president Bob Suydam, president-elect Mike Vanden Berg, secretary-treasurer Elmo Brown, secretary-treasurer elect Sue Cluff, and past president Tom Anderson.
Annual Section Meetings
The Section holds annual technical meetings focused on energy related developments in the Rocky Mountain basins. The host affiliate is determined four years in advance of the meeting by request to the Section Executive Committee. This year’s meeting will be held in Grand Junction in September and will be hosted by the Grand Junction Geological Society for the first time. Last year’s very successful meeting was held in Cheyenne in June.
The schedule for future annual meetings of the Section and host affiliate is as follows:
- 2013 Salt Lake City, UT – Utah Geological Association
- 2014 Denver CO – Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists
- 2015 bye year due to ACE being held in Denver
- 2016 Joint meeting in planning with Pacific Section
Imperial Barrel Award Regional Contest
The 2012 winner was Colorado School of Mines with an exceptional presentation of a dataset from onshore Netherlands. Brigham Young University - Idaho was second with an all-undergraduate team that did a presentation from a dataset offshore Nova Scotia. This year’s contest was under attended due to a number of embracing universities not having enough students to form teams. It is anticipated that next year’s competition will be back to normal with six or more universities attending. The RMS IBA competition is entirely self-funded by donations from industry, RMS Foundation, and societies. Kim Parsons, former RMS president coordinates this highly successful contest.
Rocky Mountain Section – AAPG Foundation
The Rocky Mountain Section AAPG Foundation is run by a board of dedicated volunteers whose mission is to provide financial support through grants and gifts to affiliated societies, schools, and other organizations promoting geologic sciences. The Foundation has assets exceeding $325,000 and receives periodic transfers of funds from profits realized at annual RMS Section Meetings.
Teacher of the Year
The RMS participates in the annual Earth Science Teacher of the Year competition to honor outstanding earth science educators in our secondary schools. The Section encourages participation from the entire area encompassing the Rocky Mountain Section, not just the 11 affiliates. This year we had a nominee from a state that has no affiliate and we anticipate that this will happen more in the future as knowledge of the competition spreads. Our 2011-2012 nominee, Jonna Gentry from Lakewood, Colorado, went on to receive the overall AAPG Excellence in Teaching Award at the ACE in Long Beach in April.