Instantaneous Inspiration
Lucia Torrado (editor@hgs.org)
I’m thrilled to start this letter by celebrating Ted Godo (2024-2025 HGS Editor) for receiving the AESE Award for Outstanding Editorial or Publishing Contribution. I had the pleasure of highlighting him in my first issue, and seeing him honored confirms that his work as editor is an inspiration!
As I sit down to write these letters, I often wonder what previous editors like Ted considered writing about. Should I share a personal experience? Highlight a recent HGS event? Reflect on a lesson learned in my career? Or maybe a bit of everything?
I also think carefully about what to bring to the table, trying to set aside personal bias while still offering something meaningful to our readers. However, I do admit that in this issue, the bias was a little bit inevitable, as it focuses on seismic attributes, which happens to be a favorite of mine. But being an editor is also about embracing topics outside my comfort zone, and hopefully the next issue will take us there — exploring ideas that challenge me and, I hope, engage you in new ways.
Which brings me to our readers: I warmly encourage you to contribute. Not just industry-focused topics, but research, education, environmental studies, fieldwork, technological innovations: any topic that deepens our understanding of the Earth. Your insights and experiences are what make this publication a true reflection of our community’s diversity and expertise.
My Instantaneous Introduction to Attributes
So, I guess to answer my own questions above, I’ll share a personal experience. The first time I saw a seismic volume on a computer during my first industry experience was eye-opening. A few days later, I was even more in awe watching a variance attribute being calculated for the first time. Back then, even a simple attribute could take hours, so we’d leave it running overnight, only to find the next day that the computer had crashed. We quickly learned to run it strategically during lunch breaks and into the afternoon, while working on other tasks. If I have to be honest, the experience was a “crash course” on seismic attributes, both literally and figuratively. So, you could say that my introduction to seismic attributes wasn’t phase-d but rather instantaneous. Nowadays, I try to use them with as much frequency as possible, and whenever I see a new cool attribute, display, or geological feature, I can’t help but want to take a deeper dip into it, since attributes do help build a geologic story with remarkable coherence (see what I did there? I may have also given away half of this issue’s Word Breccia answers).
Seismic attributes have been around for a long time, and they still remain fascinating, so it’s no coincidence that the cover image highlights an attribute. This issue not only explores seismic attributes but also celebrates the people who have dedicated their professional lives to further developing them.
In This Issue of the Bulletin
● Curvature Attributes as a Tool for Fault and Fracture Characterization
In this Technical Article, Luis Bravo illustrates how curvature attributes offer a powerful way to map subtle faults and fractures that traditional seismic tools may overlook. Using data from the Cimarrona Formation in Colombia’s Middle Magdalena Valley Basin, the study demonstrates how these attributes, integrated with seismic geomorphology principles, can reveal subtle structural and depositional elements essential for reservoir interpretation.
● Using Attributes to Locate Critical Minerals in Volcanic Facies
Danial Mansourian, a researcher with the AASPI Consortium at the University of Oklahoma presents a novel workflow integrating seismic attributes with unsupervised machine learning to map volcanic facies in the Otway Basin, South Australia. Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) effectively differentiate sills, lava flows, and dykes, providing a new framework for identifying potential critical mineral repositories within volcanic systems.
● The AASPI Consortium: Building on Kurt Marfurt’s Legacy Under Heather Bedle’s Direction
The Attribute-Assisted Seismic Processing and Interpretation (AASPI) consortium at the University of Oklahoma has spent nearly two decades advancing how geoscientists derive insights from seismic data. Founded by Dr. Kurt Marfurt and now led by Dr. Bedle and her team, AASPI continues to develop innovative tools that enhance subsurface interpretation, evolving from seismic attribute analysis to cutting-edge applications in machine learning and explainable AI.
● Pivot Profile: Heather Bedle’s Journey into Academia
One of the most formative parts of my experience as a research assistant at the University of Houston was having Dr. Heather Bedle as a mentor through the AAPG Student Chapter. Her energy, generosity, and unwavering belief in her students left a lasting impression. In this issue, we feature her fascinating journey from the defense industry, to oil and gas, and currently, into academia. Seeing how the AASPI consortium is so widely recognized and how she has become a respected leader in her field is both deeply impressive and -to anyone who knew her then- not surprising in the least.
● GeoPicks: On the Road for Thanksgiving? Follow Texas Rocks!
Rasoul Sorkhabi provides a review of Texas Rocks! a book by Nathalie and Paul Brandes that takes readers on a geologic journey across the Lone Star State. From the ancient Grenville and Ouachita-Marathon orogenies to the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway and Miocene basin extensional events, the book highlights six geologic regions of Texas. Perfect for travelers and rock enthusiasts alike, it’s a must-have guide for exploring Texas’ rich geological heritage.