SEPM Annual Meeting

Details

Isabel Patricia Montañez is a Professor in the Department of Geology at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Montañez is a field geologist and geochemist whose research focuses on the marine and terrestrial archive of paleo- atmospheric composition and paleoclimate conditions, in particular in reconstructing records of greenhouse gasclimate linkages during past periods of major climate transitions. She received her Ph.D. in geology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1990, was awarded the James Lee Wilson Young Scientist (1996) and Outstanding Paper awards from the Society for Sedimentary Geology (1992), the AAPG Cam Sproule Award (1996), and is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and recent Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2011-2012).

She presented the 2012 F. Earl Ingerson Lecture of the Geochemical Society at the National Meeting of the Geological Society of America. She was the Chair and lead author of the National Academy of Science— National Research Council’s Report on the Importance of Deep-Time Geologic Records for Understanding Climate Change Impacts and a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on New Research Opportunities in the Earth Sciences. Isabel’s talk is entitled Earth’s Deep-Time Insight into Our Climate System.

Earth has two fundamentally different climate states — a cool“icehouse” state characterized by the waxing and waning of continental-based ice sheets at high latitudes and a “greenhouse” state characterized by much warmer temperatures globally and only small or no ice sheets. Although earth has been in an icehouse for the past 34 million years, warmer greenhouse conditions have been the“typical” climate state of the past half billion years.

At the current rate of global C emissions, atmospheric CO2 is projected to increase by the end of this century to levels last experienced on earth prior to the onset of our current glacial state. Insight into how the earth system will function in such an evolving and high CO2 environment uniquely resides in the deep-time analogs of past climate change and ecosystem response.

The deep-time archive provides the only integrated record of the full spectrum of climate related processes, feedbacks, and complex climate-ecosystem interactions in the earth system. Study of the deep-time geologic record reveals climate change in the past that was at times far more dynamic than suggested by reconstructions of the past few hundred thousand years. Data-climate model comparisons of past warm periods further suggest that the magnitude and duration of climate change and the CO2 levels at which critical climate and ecological thresholds could be crossed may well be underestimated by current climate projections. This presentation will discuss evidence for atmospheric CO2-climate coupling throughout Earth history and what it reveals regarding climate sensitivity to CO2-forcing.

Examples of past major transitions will be used to illustrate how greenhouse-gas forced climate change has unfolded in the past and to characterize the fingerprints of change that herald climate and ecological thresholds. Deep-time paleoclimate issues of highest priority and the associated research needs will be highlighted.

Details

SEPM President David Budd invites you to an evening of celebration to honor the 2013 award winners of the Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM) and a fantastic event to network and visit with colleagues old and new.

The Twenhofel Medal, the highest award of SEPM given in recognition of a career of outstanding contributions to sedimentary geology, will be presented to Paul Enos. SEPM Honorary Membership, given for both scientific contributions and service to the society, will be awarded to Dale Leckie.

The other science award recipients are J. Casey Moore, who will receive the Francis P. Shepard Medal in recognition of excellence in marine geology; Kenton Steward Wall Campbell, the Raymond C. Moore Medal in recognition of excellence in paleontology; J.A.D.“Tony” Dickson, the Pettijohn Medal for excellence in sedimentology; and Kyle M. Straub, the Wilson Award for excellence in sedimentary geology by a younger geoscientist.

SEPM will honor the recipients of the Best Paper Awards for 2011 in both of its journals, Journal of Sedimentary Research and PALAIOS. SEPM will also recognize the Best Student Presentation Awards from the 2013 Annual Meeting, where cash prizes will be presented to the top student presenters from the SEPM Student Awards Poster Session scheduled for Monday at Pittsburgh, sponsored by Nexen.

As always SEPM will recognize the members of the 2013 Annual Meeting Organizing Committee, without whom the meeting could not take place, and SEPM Foundation Student Grant recipients.

The reception will begin at 7:00 p.m. with cocktails available at cash bars and substantial hors d’oeuvres. The awards ceremony will start at 7:30 p.m.

Details

Global interest in shale and tight-sand unconventional reservoirs as a significant new hydrocarbon resource demands innovative research into unraveling the unique depositional systems and sedimentologic processes that contributed to their accumulation. This research symposium is intended to highlight stratigraphic and sedimentologic research and emerging depositional concepts which can be used as predictive tools in exploration and exploitation of unconventional shale and tight-sand reservoirs.

Research topics to be presented as part of the Symposium include:

• Use of sequence-stratigraphic approaches and chemostratigraphic methods in the identification of shale and tight-sand reservoir ‘sweet spots’.
• Sedimentologic and stratigraphic influence on fracture mechanics and organic geochemistry of shale and tight-sand reservoirs.
• Comparison of ‘deep’ versus ‘shallow’ depositional models for the accumulation of organic-rich shale facies.
• Organic-rich shale facies — A consequence of regional tectonodepositional systems and basin evolutionary history or global events?
• Conventional siliciclastic depositional models — Are they appropriate for interpretation of unconventional shale and tightsand reservoirs?
• Exploring mudstones and tight-sand reservoirs — depositional processes and characterization.
• Reservoir prediction in low-permeability lacustrine facies.

See details on pages 56, 63 and 73 of the technical program.