Jerry Bellian
rappelled 145 feet down into Devils Sinkhole, Edwards County,
Texas, to survey the geometry of the cave using land-based
lidar scanning technology called ILRIS. The data will be used
to create a realistic visualization of the hydrology of the
Edwards aquifer for an exhibit at the Witte
Museum in San Antonio. A team including Texas
Cave Management Association, Bexar
County Grotto of the National Speleological Society,
staff of the Edwards Aquifer Authority,
Boy Scouts, and Texas
Parks and Wildlife provided access, training, and support
for the venture. 1/25/05
Photograph by Allan
Cobb.
Bridget Scanlon
visited the headquarters of the International
Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna January 10-13 to participate
in a meeting about the development of a global recharge map.
Researchers from around the world attended the meeting and
delivered presentations on recharge studies in China, Africa,
India, and Europe. Different uses for such a map were evaluated,
including assessing the sustainable development of water resources
to meet one of the
United
Nation’s Millennium Development Goal of reducing
by half the world’s population currently without clean
water. The meeting provided an excellent opportunity to develop
collaborative efforts with researchers on many topics being
evaluated at the Bureau, including recharge and surface water/groundwater
interactions. 1/25/05
Granite Mountain
Stone Design, a division of Cold Spring Granite Company,
has a showroom for the public in Marble Falls that showcases
the various granites that they produce around the world.
Cold
Spring Granite Company is a major producer of the world’s
granite. Cold Spring’s Texas Division, located just
west of Marble Falls in the Llano Uplift, has a large quarry
where they produce dimension stone from the Town Mountain
Granites. Dale Klingsporn, representing Cold
Spring, has generously agreed to be the supplier of granite
for the BEG Texas Rock kits. More than
5,000 kits are purchased
each year by teachers, informal science educators, and others
to educate students about Texas rocks and minerals. The Bureau
gratefully acknowledges Cold Spring’s support of this
endeavor. 1/25/05
Scott
Tinker, Eric Potter, and Luis
Barreda traveled to Santa Cruz, Bolivia, January
15-19 to discuss possible opportunities for a Jackson School/
BEG research partnership with Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales
Bolivianos (YPFB).
Pictured here (l to r) are YPFB’s
Presidente Ejecutivo Jaime Barrenechea, Scott
Tinker, and Manuel Arellano, who
facilitated the trip. In addition to the meetings, YPFB executives
treated BEG’s team to a tour of their newly remodeled
offices, the well-organized data center, and their impressive
core and cuttings storage facility. 1/21/05
The Bureau’s Friday seminar
speaker on January 21 was Joshua Rosenfeld,
who presented “Evaporative Drawdown
of the Gulf of Mexico at the Paleocene-Eocene Boundary.”
Rosenfeld, who holds a Ph.D. in Geology (1981) from State
University of New York at Binghamton, was a petroleum geologist
for 20 years with Amoco and is currently with Veritas
Exploration Services. 1/21/05
Ramon
Trevino was the invited monthly luncheon presenter
at the December 15 meeting of the Corpus
Christi Geological Society and the Coastal
Bend Geophysical Society. The title of his presentation,
which he also gave at the Corpus Christi Town Club, is Sequence
of the South Texas Oligocene: Understanding the Relationship
between Shale Tectonism and Lowstand Deposition. [Abstract]
1/20/05
Steve Laubach
and Randy Marrett spent two weeks of December
in northwest Argentina conducting field work in fractured
rocks in a fold-thrust belt. The trip was also an opportunity
to prepare for the Fracture
Research and Application Consortium’s South
American Research
Meeting, which is currently in the planning stages. 1/20/05
On January
10 representatives from State and Federal institutions
met at the Bureau to discuss status, future plans, coordination,
and needs of GPS networks in Texas and Louisiana. Dr.
Roy Dokka from Louisiana State University
in Baton Rouge (pictured), spoke about his experience
in establishing the Louisiana Spatial Reference Center.
Mr. Bob Traylor (Texas Commission
on
Environmental Quality)
and Dr. Juan Moya (Texas General
Land Office) organized the meeting, which was hosted
by Bureau researcher Dr. Jim Gibeaut. Texas
A&M Corpus Christi, which is embarking on a Texas
Height Modernization Program; the National
Geodetic Survey; and the Texas Department
of Transportation also made presentations. 1/12/05
Steve
Laubach and his intrepid FRAC group,
who are dedicated, according to their Website to “conquering
fractured-reservoir problems by 2010,” invite
you to that site to see what they’re up to. Take
a trip to FRAC City and click on Events for the latest.
1/12/05
The second
annual meeting of the Academy
of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas
was held in Dallas January 6 and 7. Drs. Peter
Flawn, Bill Fisher, and Scott
Tinker attended the meeting, which included
discussions by Nobel Laureates, Academy members, and
scientists, as
well as keynote presentations
by NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe
and National Institutes of Health Director
Dr. Elias Zerhouni.
The Academy was created “to provide broader recognition
of the state’s top achievers in medicine, engineering
and science, and to build a stronger identity for Texas as
an important destination and center of achievement in these
fields.” The Academy comprises the state’s 12
Nobel Laureates and the 200+ Texas members of the Institute
of Medicine, National Academy of Engineering, and the National
Academy of Sciences. Click
here to visit the Web site. 1/07/05
The first technical
seminar of 2005 was held Friday, January. Shinichi
Sakurai spoke on “Monitoring
Saturation Changes for CO2 Sequestration: Petrophysical
Support of the Frio Brine Pilot Experiment.”
[Abstract]
1/06/05
BEG relies
on funding and donations from third parties in order
to sustain its valuable work.
Anadarko
Petroleum Corporation recently made a substantial donation
of computer equipment to BEG to be used by graduate students,
faculty, and staff in the Houston, Austin, and Midland locations.
The donation consists of 20 Ultra Sun workstations, 25 laptops,
25 desktop PC’s and monitors, and 5 laser printers.
In addition to the computer equipment, Anadarko also donated
laboratory equipment to BEG’s Core Research Centers,
including several microscopes, a transfer scope, and a hydraulic
splitter.
Thank you, Anadarko, for your continued support. 1/04/05
