September 2009

Founded in 1917, AAPG started as a local society in Tulsa, in what was then one of the major centers of the American oil industry. Cushing Field alone, located just west of Tulsa and discovered in 1912, at one time supplied nearly a fifth of the total U.S. oil consumption.

Headquarters staff has been in the process of reviewing AAPG’s strategic plan in preparation of updating our business plan. It was good to see that AAPG members and staff have been very successful in reaching many of the goals set in the original strategic plan.

I recently attended a meeting in Houston with some of the other elected officers from the DEG, EMD and DPA, along with AAPG Executive Director Rick Fritz and Divisions manager Norma Newby.

Numerous examples have circulated among the geophysical community that illustrate how some geologic targets can be better seen by constraining the reflected seismic wavefield to a particular narrow range of frequencies.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ruled that while it remained concerned about environmental assessments performed for the 2007-12 five-year program, those concerns were restricted to the lease sales planned for the Arctic Ocean and Alaska outer continental shelf (OCS).

Cartagena, Colombia was hot, hot, hot during the successful Simposio Bolivariano Petroleum Exploration in Subandean Basins conference.