Bureau of Economic Geology Recent News and Events

March, 2009

On Sunday, March 15, Bureau Director Scott Tinker’s photo appeared in the Austin American Statesman in an ad for U.T.’s State of Tomorrow. “He told CO2 emissions where they could go,” reads the caption under the photo of Scott, hardhat in hand, standing in front of a Texas power plant. The blurb goes on to tout the Bureau and our GCCC group “…pioneering discoveries in carbon sequestration, one of several promising new technologies helping to find global solutions that work for our energy needs and for the environment.”

Click on photo to enlarge

On March 5 Dr. Michelle Foss of CEE gave a presentation on National Oil Companies at the World Bank Extractive Industries Week, which was held in Washington, D.C. On March 9 Dr. Foss was a keynote speaker at the LNG Summit of the 15th Annual FLAME—European Gas Conference, which was held in Amsterdam. On March 10 Dr. Foss spoke at the Heartland Institute's 2009 International Conference on Climate Change, which was held in New York City. Her topic—"Climate Science and Economics: Understanding and Balancing the Debate."

Dr. Stephen Ruppel was invited to give his Bureau Centennial lecture, titled "Understanding Black Shale Successions: Lessons and Questions from the Barnett and Other Paleozoic Mudrocks," on March 4 at Chesapeake Energy in Oklahoma City, where more than 100 Chesapeake scientists heard him speak. During a question-and-answer session after the lecture, Stephen had several discussions with Chesapeake scientists. Steve was then given a grand tour of the facility, which includes a state-of-the-art science lab.

On February 26, Dr. Lesli J. Wood gave her first of many lectures as a 2009 BEG Centennial Visiting Lecturer at the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson. Her topic: "Mars: A History of Flowing Water and Moving Sediments." UA is a center for much of the recent research on Mars. Approximately 20 graduate and undergraduate students and faculty from the UA Geology Department attended the afternoon talk, after which Dr. Wood spent time with students answering questions and discussing possible analogs in the study of Martian deltas.

On February 20, 2009, Dr. Stephen E. Laubach gave his first Bureau Centennial lecture (of many) titled "How Fractures in Sedimentary Rocks Open and Seal: Insights from Structural Diagenesis" at the University of New Mexico, Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences. Approximately 40 faculty members and students attended the event, which included a question-and-answer session.

Ursula Hammes and Rob Reed presented their latest STARR-sponsored research on shale-gas systems at the US Gulf Regional Mudstones as Unconventional Shale Gas/Oil Reservoirs Applied Geoscience Conference, which was organized by the Houston Geological Society and the Energy Mineral Division of AAPG in Houston. The sold-out conference was attended by 400+ geoscientists and engineers from industry and academe. Ursula presented a talk on "Sequence Stratigraphy, Depositional Environments, and Extent of the Haynesville Shale, East Texas," and Rob presented a talk with co-authored Kitty Milliken titled "Particle Sources and Mudrock Properties: Contrasting Examples

from Cenozoic Mudrocks of the Gulf of Mexico and Paleozoic Siliceous Mudrocks of the North American Mid-Continent." The two talks were well received, even amidst the variety of presentations on mudstones, which ranged from the history of mudstone geology to organic geochemistry and industry examples on shale-gas plays by both academe and industry.

The Bureau of Economic Geology welcomes database analyst Jessica Hinton as the newest member of the STARR group. Jessica has excellent experience in managing Excel and Access databases and will track STARR's revenue neutrality matrix. Her tasks also include providing support on other various energy-related databases. Jessica's background as a geologist and laboratory technician specialist will benefit the STARR team and other entities of the BEG. Please join us in welcoming Jessica to the Bureau.