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Two longtime valuable supporters of the AAPG Foundation—James A. Hartman and Charles ‘Chuck’ Weiner—haven been named recipients of the Foundation’s top awards for 2014.

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This month you’ll have the opportunity to visit our new AAPG website – a radically new experience designed to improve your connection to AAPG.

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"Breakthrough elegance": ExxonMobil geologists Jeff Ottmann and Kevin Bohacs shared their highly-coveted knowledge on sweet spots and producibility thresholds at a recent Geosciences Technology Workshop on Unconventional Reservoir Quality.

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Energy is required to secure, treat and distribute water; conversely, energy production depends on an abundant and reliable source of water.

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The Indian state of West Bengal, located in eastern India and stretching from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, is a cultural hub where art and literacy flourished. This landscape is dominated by winding rivers and luscious fields of spices, rice and other crops. The Bengal Basin region, however, is confronted with some of the highest levels of naturally occurring arsenic (As) in drinking water, which poses a major health-related environmental threat to the 70-100 million people living in the area.

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Geologists, cognitive scientists, software developers and other industry stakeholders put their heads together at a recent Hedberg conference to share insights on the 3-D interpretation and spatial thinking skills that are vital to geoscience.

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Emphasis: Arctic Exploration

 

The Final Frontier: The Arctic Circle’s vast, untapped treasures of oil and gas resources beckon explorers to boldly go, despite the daunting technical, political and environmental challenges.

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Arctic pioneers will relate their lessons and experiences from exploring and producing in the frozen north at the third annual Arctic Technology Conference this month in Houston.

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Oil spills are a potential challenge in any corner of the world, but the Arctic brings its own set of challenges to oil production and transportation, and so it needs its own dedicated technologies for meeting them.

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Icebreaking vessels are the key to navigating the Arctic, and so are in high demand as oil producers set their sights on the vast oil reserves at the top of the world.

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Standing Columns

I have heard many of our faithful members distinguish AAPG from other groups because we are a premier scientific and technical organization – and so we are. I also have heard equally strident voices within AAPG passionately declare that we are a professional organization – and so we are.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
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Last month I had the privilege of traveling to the Middle East with AAPG President Lee Krystinik.

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Every six months, chairs of the Energy Minerals Division committees convene and report on developments in the areas they cover. In this column, we highlight important observations from these recent reports.

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It is no secret that geologists do not fully trust all the events shown in pretty seismic pictures.

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Oil and natural gas production continued to grow in the United States in 2013 even as progress on new federal laws and regulations stalled – but local opposition to shale gas and oil development increased.

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“One man was at the head waters of the River Amazon among the headshrinkers when he was recalled to come to Iraq; another came from Argentina, another from Mexico, still another had been in Romania, one in Indo-China, several in Venezuela and the East Indies.”

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Young Professional activities in the Asia-Pacific region are growing by leaps and bounds – and as the regional coordinator for YP activities, I am pleased to announce that new chapters have been formed in Malaysia, Indonesia, China and India.

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Awards, appointments and determining new ways to help support geoscience education dominated AAPG Foundation activities in January.

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