Dr. John Weber, from the Department of Geology at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, presented "Trinidad Neotectonics from Geodesy, Geology, Geomorphology, and Paleoseismology" in the Bureau's main conference room on Tuesday, December 17. John's specialty is neotectonics in Central Europe and the southern Caribbean. He has been collaborating with the Ministry of Energy in Trinidad and Tobago and the U.S. Geological Survey. 12/19/02

Research Associate Roberto Gutiérrez was a contributor for the "Symposium on Terrain Analysis for Water Resources Applications" held December 16–18, 2002 at the UT Commons Center. Roberto presented "Lidar Technology Update," moderated a session titled "Lidar Application Track," and taught a short course titled "Introduction to Geodesy and GPS for LIDAR Applications." 12/18/02

The UTPB Center for Energy and Economic Diversification (CEED) was a packed house on December 10 and 11, 2002. There approximately 260 people from the U.S., Canada, and Scandinavia attended the 8th Annual CO₂ Conference in Midland. Themes included a short course on wellbore management in CO₂ floods, CO₂ operations, the new SPE CO₂ flooding monograph, and CO₂ flood case histories. Dale Simbeck of SFA Pacific, Inc., gave the luncheon presentation titled "CO₂ Capture and Storage: The Essential Bridge to the Hydrogen Economy." Sponsors of the event included ExxonMobil Gas Marketing, Kinder Morgan CO₂ Company, Nicholas Consulting Group, PTTC Southwest and Texas Regions, Russell K. Hall and Associates, Permian Basin SPE, and Trinity CO₂ LLC. Steve Melzer of Melzer Consulting and UTPB/CEED was the Conference Director. 12/13/02

Senior Research Fellow F. Jerry Lucia and Research Associate Julia F. Gale recently traveled to London to present papers at a workshop titled "The Geometry and Petrogenesis of Dolomite Hydrocarbon Reservoirs" that was held December 3–4, 2002, at Burlington House-Piccadilly. Jerry presented "Origin and Petrophysics of Dolostone Pore Space" [Abstract]. Julia's presentation was titled "Predicting and Characterizing Fractures in Dolomite Reservoir: Using the Link Between Diagenesis and Fracturing" [Abstract]. 12/13/02

December 1–5, 2002, Bureau scientists Tiffany L. Hepner and Rebecca C. Smyth, together with Texas Aircraft Pooling Board pilot Randy Smedley, flew a Lidar mission and completed preliminary processing to check aerial coverage on the southwestern coast of California. They mapped 80 km of coastline from Point La Jolla to Dana Point while dodging military aircraft, commercial airliners, and private planes. Their work, funded by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, is part of an ongoing Southern California Beach Process Study. [Photos] 12/11/02

The Bureau's weekly seminar was held on Friday, December 6, at 8:30 a.m., in the Main Conference Room. Bureau scientist Jerome A. Bellian presented, "Laser Intensity Mapping of Outcrop Geology: Over 1 Billion Surveyed," which was a discussion of the Bureau's Lidar and ILRIS 3-D programs. [Abstract] 12/03/02

The Austin Geological Society had its monthly meeting on Monday, December 2, 2002, 7:00 to 8:00 PM, at the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) campus, Board Room, 1st Floor Hancock Building. The speaker was Dr. Richard Ketcham, Research Scientist, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin. He presented "Geology in 3D: Inspection, Visualization, and Quantification Using High-Resolution X-ray Computed Tomography (CT)." [Abstract] 12/02/02

The Bureau welcomes two new researchers to its growing staff.

Xavier Janson, a carbonate researcher with a Ph.D. from the University of Miami (2002), will join the RCRL team. Xavier received his M.S. degree from the Institut Français du Pétrole (IFP school, 1997) and his B.S. Degree from Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble.

Geophysicist Florence Bonnaffé has a M.A. in Applied Geophysics from Pierre et Marie Curie University in Paris, and a B.A. in geology from Grenoble University. Her expertise will be applied to several ongoing Bureau research projects. 12/04/02

Senior Research Scientist Bridget Scanlon gave a Keynote address at the National Ground Water Association Annual Meeting in Las Vegas in December 2002. The title of her talk was "Current and Innovative Approaches for Quantifying Recharge at the Watershed Scale." [PowerPoint]  01/13/03

Research conducted by Senior Research Scientist Shirley Dutton is the featured cover story on the December issue of the AAPG Bulletin. The title of her paper, coauthored by Christopher D. White, Brian J. Willis, and Djuro Novakovic, is "Calcite Cement Distribution and Its Effect on Fluid Flow in a Deltaic Sandstone, Frontier Formation, Wyoming, USA." The Bureau congratulates Shirley on this prestigious showcase of her research. [Abstract] 12/13/02

Bureau coastal geologist Jim Gibeaut spent 6 weeks in November and December 2002 along the shoreline of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia from Al-Jubal to the Kuwait border in the Persian Gulf as part of a multidisciplinary team assessing the ecological damage and residual oil from the 1991 Gulf War. Information from this detailed and large-scale study will help determine damages to be assessed against Iraq by the United Nations Compensation Commission. It will also provide data for determining how to mitigate this environmental disaster. 01/06/03