Bureau Research Scientist Bill Ambrose has accepted the position of Interim Program Manager of BEG's Gulf Coast Carbon Center (GCCC). Bill has a wealth of experience in managing large, multifaceted geologic research programs, as well as considerable experience in characterizing Gulf coast reservoirs. Bill's new responsibilities are to provide leadership within a program that is

investigating geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide and related projects in energy and the environment. Congratulations, Bill! 08/29/05

Senior Research Scientist Shirley Dutton attended a workshop August 22–24 on “Drilling for Deep-Time Geosystems.” The workshop, sponsored by DOSECC, Inc. (Drilling, Observation, and Sampling of the Earth's Continental Crust), was held at the National Science Foundation building in Arlington, Virginia. Shirley presented a talk titled “Curation of Continental Scientific Cores and Samples.” 08/29/05

The 10th Multidisciplinary Conference on Sinkholes and the Engineering & Environmental Impacts of Karst will be held September 24–28, 2005, in San Antonio, Texas. Bureau researcher Susan Hovorka will be involved with a variety of presentations, including teaching a short course titled “Geologic Assessments of Karst Areas (with Particular Reference to the Requirements of Texas 213)”;

co-leading a field trip to sites within the San Antonio segment of the Balcones Fault Zone Edwards aquifer; and coauthoring several papers. Sue's Graduate Research Assistant Adrien Lindley is presenting a poster of their BEG research titled “The Hydrologic Function of the Soil and Bedrock System at Upland Sinkholes in the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone of South-Central Texas.” Visit the conference website at www.asce.org/conferences/karst2005. 08/29/05

In July 2005, the Association of American State Geologists bestowed its President's Award on the Bureau of Economic Geology's Media and Information Technologies Department (MIT) for its “significant contribution to the successful development of our numerous position papers.” Joel Lardon, MIT manager, accepted a plaque on behalf

of the department. John Els and Scott Rodgers are co-managers of MIT. 08/18/05

FRAC researcher Steve Laubach, together with Steve Cumella (Bill Barrett Corporation) and M. Ray Thomasson (Thomasson Partner Associates), will be chairing oral and poster sessions on

"Fractured Clastics and Carbonates—What Constrains Their Reservoir Limits?" at the 2006 AAPG Convention in Houston. A call for papers is posted on the AAPG Website. 08/18/05

The FRAC field team is back from Scotland, where they sampled and measured what is possibly the world's largest microfractured sandstone bedding-plane pavement. The team also collected outcrop laser imagery of macroscopic fractures in the

kilometer-scale outcrop. Fieldwork for this study was made possible by a John A. and Katherine G. Jackson Research Fellowship (Laubach) and field research grants from the Geological Society of America and the Geology Foundation. 08/18/05

The Bureau is happy to announce the arrival of the Center for Energy Economics (CEE), one of the energy industry's leading advisory institutes for energy markets and economics. CEE, including its director, Dr. Michelle Michot Foss, and her team of researchers, joined the Bureau on June 1, 2005. Formerly known as the Institute for Energy, Law and Enterprise at the University of Houston, the center helps prepare energy industry managers and government policy makers for more competitive global energy markets. See Center for Energy Economics for more information.

The center focuses its research on business-government interactions, frameworks for commercially viable energy projects, and strategies for dealing with increasingly competitive energy markets. Partners include the world's top energy firms. Key project areas include liquefied natural gas and North American natural gas supply/demand balances, energy restructuring in the U.S. and abroad, and investment in developing countries and emerging markets.

Michelle Michot Foss is Chief Energy Economist and Head of CEE. Michelle has a Ph.D. in political science, University of Houston, with honors (1995); an M.S. in mineral economics, Colorado School of Mines (1985); and a B.S. in biology, with a geology minor, University of Louisiana at Lafayette (1976). From 1995 through 2005, Michelle was the Executive Director of the University of Houston's Institute for Energy, Law and Enterprise, which she founded and directed as the Energy Institute, C. T. Bauer College of Business, in 1991.

Gürcan Gülen is a new Senior Energy Economist at BEG. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from Boston College (1996) and a B.A. in Economics, Bogaziçi (Bosphorus) University, Istanbul, Turkey (1990). Prior to coming to BEG, Gürcan worked at the Institute for Energy, Law and Enterprise, University of Houston Law Center (2002–2005), and the Energy Institute, C. T. Bauer College of Business, University of Houston (1997–2002).

Ruzanna Makaryan is a new Senior Energy Analyst. She has an M.B.A. from the University of Houston, C. T. Bauer College of Business (2003), and a B.A. in Linguistics from Turkmen State University, Turkmenistan (1997). Ruzanna was a researcher at the Institute for Energy, Law and Enterprise, University of Houston Law Center, from 2002 through 2005.

Aisha Hanif is a new Administrative Associate at BEG. Aisha was a program manager at the Institute for Energy, Law and Enterprise, University of Houston Law Center, from 2000 through 2005, helping manage the day-to-day operations of the institute. She attends the University of Houston and will soon be granted a B.B.A. degree in accounting from C.T. Bauer College of Business.

Natalie Silva is a new Administrative Assistant at BEG. She is a graduate of the University of Houston with a B.A. in Public Relations and a minor in Latin American Studies.

Dmitry Volkov is an Energy Analyst. He has an M.B.A. from the University of Houston (2005) and a B.S. in Oriental Studies from Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia (2000). Dmitry was a researcher at the Institute for Energy, Law and Enterprise, University of Houston Law Center, from 2003 through 2005. 08/15/05

On August 3, Bureau Director Scott Tinker spoke on “A Federal Role in Energy: Opportunities and Public Realities” as a keynote lunch presentation. Scott was attending a roundtable discussion and forum titled "Regional Industry Perspectives for a New U.S. Natural Gas and Oil Production Development Program" organized by SAIC (Science Application

International Corporation) and hosted by The Greater Houston Partnership. 08/09/05

Also in Houston on August 3, the Colombia Oil and Gas Investment Roundtable was held, which was sponsored by the Colombian Embassy in the U.S. and the U.S. Embassy in Colombia. Colombian and U.S. government officials, as well as representatives from U.S. upstream oil and gas companies, attended the event. As part of the roundtable, Michelle Foss, Chief Energy

Economist and Head of the Bureau's Center for Energy Economics (CEE), moderated a panel discussion titled “Opportunities for Upstream Investment.” A networking reception was hosted by CEE immediately following the meeting. 08/09/05

Research Scientist Mike Hudec, who co-directs the Bureau's Applied Geodynamics Laboratory, has been chosen to receive the 2006 George C. Matson Award from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists for his talk “A Compressional Origin for Minibasins near the Sigsbee Escarpment, Gulf of Mexico.” [Abstract] Mike's talk was judged as the best paper presented at the 2005 annual

convention held in June in Calgary, on the basis of both scientific quality of content and excellence in presentation. 08/05/05

It is with great sadness that we announce the untimely death of our dear friend and colleague Dixon E. Coulbourn, who died Sunday, July 31, 2005, in a pool accident. Dixon was laid to rest on Thursday, August 4, at Capital Memorial Park, 14501 N. IH-35, Pflugerville, Texas.

Dixon, a native Austinite, began his career at the

Bureau in 1987, after earning a B.A. in English in 1984 from North Texas University. He started out working in the administrative group, where his grammar and proofreading skills came in handy. Dixon was Mr. Adaptable. He was always interested in technology and taught himself a lot about computers. He continued to hone his skills until he was reassigned to the IT group, where he became indispensable in troubleshooting computer problems. He worked his way up to senior network analyst and became the Bureau's go-to person for Unix operations. Dixon made many friends through his easy-going nature, and we will miss him deeply.

Dixon was also renowned in Austin's 1980's punk music scene for Idle Time, a fanzine he created using his own photographs and writings that celebrated the enthusiasm of punk. Dixon's talents also included kayaking, painting, music, and Web sites. Dixon's personal Web site is at http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~edge/index.php. 08/03/05

Senior Research Scientist Bob Hardage has been chosen to receive the 2006 Monroe G. Cheney Science Award from the Southwest Section of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. This award is given in recognition of “singular contributions to and achievements in the science of petroleum geology of the southwest region.” Bob will receive his award at the Southwest Section Annual Meeting in May 2006. 08/01/05