Bureau of Economic Geology Recent News and Events

June, 2009

TOTAL Senior Vice President of Scientific Development Jean Francois Minster officially opened the AEC conference at TOTAL's Le Spazio facility in Paris

   The Advanced Energy Consortium (AEC) sponsored a workshop in Paris, France with seventy participants from numerous countries including France, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, England, Scotland, Qatar, Belgium, Egypt and the USA in attendance. A networking and dinner cruise on the Seine kicked off the two day event. On Tuesday, June 16, Jean Francois Minster, Senior Vice President of Scientific Development, TOTAL, greeted the guests at TOTAL’s Le Spazio facility and officially opened the conference; an oil field primer presented by AEC members Dan Georgi (Baker Hughes) and Willem Schulte (Shell) followed. Jay Kipper and Sean Murphy reviewed the background and mission of the AEC and discussed the plans for continued research and funding for 2009. The morning session concluded with a panel Q&A discussion between AEC members and the audience.
   The afternoon session featured Ralph Kling of Crossbow Technology, who challenged the audience with a new approach to realizing the promise of autonomous self-forming, self-healing mesh wireless sensor networks. Dean Neikirk (Univ. Texas), Joyce Wong (CalTech), and Howard Schmidt (Rice Univ.) followed with technology overviews of their current research projects for the AEC. The final three presenters on the agenda are exploring radically different applications of nano scale technologies. Kazukiko Matsumoto (Osaka Univ.) is exploiting the unique properties of carbon nanotubes to develop a whole new class of extremely sensitive biochemical sensors for detecting antibodies, proteins, glucose and specific cancer antigens. Christian Joachim (CEMES-CNRS/Toulousse) reviewed the challenges and his successes in constructing single molecule machines. Finally, DK Arvind (Univ. Edinburgh) provided glimpses of the potential power and application of "Specknets", minute semiconductor grains that can sense and compute locally, and communicate wirelessly.
   The dialogue between the Petroleum E&P and the Nano scale research communities during this two day event was invaluable and helped to further clarify the technical goals and potential nano scale solutions solicited through the 2009 Request for Proposals (available on this website). Special thanks to BEG employees David Chapman, Sharon Campos and Natalie Silva, whose planning and coordination helped to make this workshop successful.

The 81st Texas Legislature adopted resolutions recognizing the Bureau’s centennial and 100 years of service as a research unit at The University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Geological Survey. Representative Donna Howard sponsored the resolution in the House and gave the reading on the chamber floor on May 27th. Senator Kirk Watson sponsored the resolution in the Senate and gave the reading on May 28th. In attendance for the readings from the Bureau were Director and State Geologist Scott Tinker; Associate Directors Jay Kipper, Ian Duncan, and Eric Potter; and support staff members Wanda LaPlante, David Stephens (photographer), and Sigrid Clift. The Bureau appreciates the efforts of Angie Long and Gwen Grigsby from President Powers’ office for their critical role in working with the legislature to get the resolutions through both the House and the Senate. Read the resolutions: Senate Resolution 964 HR-2349

On June 23, 2009, Dr. Steve Ruppel gave a Centennial lecture titled "Understanding Black Shale Successions: Lessons and Questions from the Barnett and Other Paleozoic Mudrocks" to a standing-room-only group of 50 geoscientists at USGS Headquarters in Reston, Virginia. Steve met with Drs. Jim Coleman, Paul Hackley, Bruce Wardlaw, and John Repetski about the possibility for collaborative projects in shale and carbonate systems and toured the USGS organic petrology lab.

On May 7, 2009, Steve gave his lecture to approximately 40 staff, faculty,and students at the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources (NMBGMR) at New Mexico Tech in Socorro. Steve met with scientists from the NMBGMR, including Dr. Peter Scholle, Director; Ronald Broadhead; and Newton Talon. He also met with New Mexico Tech faculty members Drs. Peter Mozley, Nigel Blamey, Kent Condie, and Dana Ulmer-Scholle. To view Steve’s lecture, please visit this link.