Sheriff Lecture 25th Anniversary

Monday, November 13
ROOM • Norris Conference Center • 816 Town and Country Blvd #210
Site Map • Floor Plan
Social Hour 5:30–6:30 pm
Dinner 6:30–7:30 pm, Presentation 7:30- 9:00 pm
Member/Emeritus/ Honorary Life- $65.00 Non-Member- $75.00 

To guarantee a seat, you must pre-register on the HGS website and pay with a credit card.  You may walk up and pay at the door if extra seats are available.  Please cancel by phone or email within 24 hours before the event for a refund.  Online & pre-registration closes Friday, November 10 at 6:00 pm..

Join HGS and the University of Houston Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences in a fantastic night of exploration and discovery of both Maya Ruins and Gulf of Mexico Giant Oil Fields.

U of H Geoscience graduate and undergraduate students will present posters on their research from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 pm. Email linda.sternbach@gmail.com if you want to be a judge! 

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Two Decades of Exploration and Discoveries Enabled by the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping: Contributions to the Archaeology of North and Central America. 
speaker: Juan Carlos Fernandez-Diaz, U of H Engineering Department

The National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping and the Engineering Department at the University of Houston are collaborating on exciting discoveries of hidden surface features using drones and lidar. Our first speaker is Dr. Juan Carlos Fernandez-Diaz, Research Assistant Professor, the University of Houston and Co-Investigator National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping. University of Houston researchers and archaeology partners have discovered a lost Maya city deep in the jungles of Campeche, on the Yucatan Peninsula, in Mexico. Among the findings were several 50-foot-tall structures, resembling pyramids, and pottery that date the city to the Late Classic period, between the years 600 and 800 AD. Through the analysis of airborne laser mapping (lidar), an international team of researchers – including several from the Cullen College of Engineering at the University of Houston – identified 478 ceremonial centers in the Mexican states of Tabasco and Veracruz. NCALM has been based at UH since 2010, and operates jointly with the University of California at Berkeley. A new buried city was discovered, now dubbed Ocomtún, or stone column in Maya, and announced by the  National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) at UH. Their discoveries transform scholars’ understanding of the origins of Mesoamerican civilizations, particularly the relation between Olmec and Maya cultures Lidar can map 3-dimensional forms of the ground and archaeological sites by penetrating vegetation. This study used publicly available lidar data covering an area of 85,000 km2. 

Using lidar technology, Fernandez-Diaz and his team can shoot hundreds of thousands of laser bursts per second at the ground and measure how quickly those pulses hit the ground and bounce back to their source. Those calculations reveal the exact distance between the plane and the ground. By repeating that process several billion times, the explorers create a three-dimensional map, complete with topographical markings noting rising structures and other hidden gems. 

Bio
Juan Carlos Fernandez-Diaz, is a Research Assistant Professor in the Uof H Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, and a co-investigator for the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping. (NCALM), is part of the 2023-25 cohort for the American Geophysical Union (AGU) LANDInG Academy Fellows. Fernandez-Diaz joined UH in 2010 as a senior researcher after earning his doctorate in Geosensing Systems Engineering from the University of Florida. He became a research assistant professor in 2019. 

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Second Presentation
The Habitat of Giant Fields in the Gulf of Mexico: Geology, Geophysics, Digital Technology: Are There More Giants to be Found?

Speaker: Charles A Sternbach, Star Creek Energy, Adjunct Professor at the University of Houston. Co-author: Richard S. Bishop

The US and Mexico's Onshore and Offshore Gulf Coast basins have long been proving grounds for discovering giant oil and gas fields. This province boasts prolific Cenozoic and Mesozoic petroleum systems and an extensive infrastructure that makes this collection of Super Basins also an economically "Advantaged Basin." 

This talk will explore examples of widely differing giant fields and discuss the technology and insights that might enable us to find more oil resources.
Questions to be addressed in this presentation. :
1.    The Super Basin Thinking Toolkit
2.    "Seven Habits of Highly Creative Energy Geoscientists"
3.    What can we learn from studying the global Giant Fields database?
4.    Why are Cretaceous (and Miocene) Giant Fields Larger than everything else?
5.    Why are Gulf Coast Giant and Super Giant Fields liquid-rich?
6.    What are Gulf Coast Giant Fields' structural styles, limiting factors, and habitats?
7.    How is the Discovery of Giant Fields linked to Technology and G&G Integration, and what do their trends suggest for the future?

Bio
Charles earned an MS and Ph.D. in geology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a BA in geology from Columbia University. Charles was appointed Research Professor at the University of Houston. Charles A. Sternbach started as a geologist for Shell Oil Company, and then became an Exploration Manager for Tom Jordan (Jordan Oil and Gas), and President of First Place Energy (International Frontier Exploration). He is currently President of Star Creek Energy (since 2004). Charles has created and organized AAPG and HGS programs on exploration for 25 years. Sternbach was recently awarded the AAPG Halbouty Award for 2024 and is a past president of both AAPG and HGS.  
 

Instructions to Norris Conf. Center:

The Norris Conference Center is on the Second (2nd) Floor, and cannot be seen from the street. From Town and Country Blvd, turn west at Plaza Way and go past the Moran Hotel.  Turn right = North and go to Level 3 of the parking structure. The parking garage can also be reached from the northbound Beltway 8 frontage road. Turn into the driveway that is 0.33 mi. north of Kimberley Ln., just before the Amegy Bank sign.