REGION NEWS
AAPG Vice President
by John Dolson
AAPG has agreed to participate with a booth in the upcoming Moscow International Oil and Gas Exhibition (MIOGE) conference in Moscow, Russia in June, 2007 (http://www.mioge.ru/eng/). Steve Veal will be manning the booth, hopefully with a cadre of student members, which now number nearly 200 in Russia.
In December, 2007 AAPG is joining with Russia's subsurface governance board (ROSNEDRO), the Society of Exploration Geophysics (SEG) and the Eurasian Association of Geophysicists (EAGO) to host an oil and gas leadership conference in Tyumen, West Siberia. It is expected to draw about 1000 people primarily from the Tyumen region. In addition, AAPG, through the European Region is pursuing developing a 2008 regional conference (3P- Polar Petroleum Potential) in conjunction with the Russian Geological Society (ROSGEO) and EAGO.
More recently, AAPG and ROSGEO have concluded a contract to translate AAPG's Memoir 86 into Russian. The work is nearly finished and we expect 2000 copies of the book to begin to be delivered across Russia in 2007 and 2008. We hope many more translations follow. This is a translation model that should seriously be examined in other parts of the world, like Latin America, where English is not the dominant geoscience technical language.
On a more global note, please note that the AAPG House of Delegates has overwhelmingly approved adoption of a graduated dues structure which allows future and existing members to join based on their 'ability to pay'. Over 90% of the HOD delegates voted for this key amendment, once again demonstrating the organization's commitment to International growth and full inclusion of domestic US geologists an others in academia and government who might have difficulty paying full dues. No significant financial loss is projected as AAPG revenue is highly dependent on conference attendance and book sales. Read more about the details on the AAPG website (http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2007/05may/graduated_dues.cfm).
On July 1, 2007, I will transition back to "civilian life" in AAPG as my term as Vice President ends. It has been a most rewarding and exciting two years for me, first standing in with John Lorenz and then serving all of you. I have grown professionally and individually through interaction with you and truly believe we are one of the greatest families of geoscientists in the world to day.
We have a lot left to do to continue to find new ways to tap the energy of our members and help bring the world cleaner, cheaper and more plentiful sources of oil and gas. I look forward to being able to continue to do that within AAPG in any capacity.