Tim Collett, an internationally recognized, accomplished research geologist in gas hydrates, is chief for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Energy Resources Program gas hydrate research efforts and an adjunct professor for the Department of Geophysics at the Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colo.

Collett, an award-winning AAPG member, has been with the USGS since 1983 and has been the chief and co-chief scientist for numerous domestic and international gas hydrate scientific and industrial drilling expeditions and programs, including the India NGHP Expedition 01 and 02 gas hydrate drilling and testing projects.

He was co-chief scientist of the international cooperative gas hydrate research project, which was responsible for drilling dedicated gas hydrate production research wells in Canada’s Mackenzie Delta under the Mallik 1998 and 2002 efforts.

Collett also was the logging scientist on the Gulf of Mexico JIP Gas Hydrate Research Expedition in 2005 and the Gulf of Mexico JIP Leg II drilling project in 2009, and is the co-chief scientist of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 311. He sailed as a science advisor on the Korean UBGH2 Expedition in 2010.

He was the principal investigator responsible for organizing and conducting the 1995 and 2008 USGS National Oil and Gas Assessment of natural gas hydrates.

Collett’s current research efforts at the USGS deal mostly with domestic and international gas hydrate energy resource characterization studies. His ongoing gas hydrate assessment activities in Alaska are focused on assessing the energy resource potential of gas hydrates on the North Slope and supporting the domestic marine gas hydrate assessments being led by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Collett’s international gas hydrate activities include cooperative projects with research partners in India, Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan and Canada.

He is a recipient of the U.S. Department of the Interior Meritorious Service Award, the Golomb-Chilinger Medal from the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, and the Natural Resources of Canada Public Service Award. An active member in the EMD Gas Hydrates Committee, Collett also is a recipient of the EMD Frank Kottlowski Memorial Award.

He has published more than 200 research papers along with 10 books and treatises on gas hydrates and other unconventional resources, including AAPG Memoir 89: Natural Gas Hydrates — Energy Resource Potential and Associated Geologic Hazards.

Statement for DL Tour:

This AAPG Distinguished Lecture tour on natural gas hydrates has come at a critical time. The study of gas hydrates in nature has been ongoing for more than 40 years. Significant strides have been made in our understanding of the occurrence, distribution and characteristics of marine and terrestrial Arctic gas hydrates, and our knowledge of the role they may play as an energy resource, geologic hazard, and possible agent in climate change has also grown.

Recognizing the potential importance of gas hydrate research, the U.S. Congress enacted the Methane Hydrate Research and Development Act of 2000, which represented the beginning of an integrated national gas hydrate research program in the United States. At the same time, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry in Japan launched a research program to develop plans for a gas hydrate exploratory drilling and production testing project in the Nankai Trough.

Since the beginning of these programs, countries such as India, China, Canada and the Republic of Korea have established large gas hydrate research and development programs. Government-funded geoscience drilling expeditions and production tests have provided a wealth of new information on the occurrence of gas hydrates in nature and what their ultimate energy resource potential may be, which will be the focus of my lectures.