A Busy Month
by Bill Rizer
The month of May evokes feelings of warmth, green things and rebirth. Of course as I write this it is early April and we just had one of the coldest weekends of the year. Add to that the fact that I finally put to bed the ninth Bulletin of my tenure and what I feel like is far closer to a cold wrung-out wet bar rag than somebody's idyllic image of spring. It really has not been that bad...never mind!
This Bulletin features a new column, one I hope catches on big, called Recollections. In this month's column George Devries Klein tells us one of the (what I am sure are) many interesting stories of his career in "Recollections of a Cold War Experience." I hope the column catches on because I know there are so many stories out there that the membership would love to read. I might even have one or two myself. So, if you like the column and have something of interest to say, please send it on in.
This month there is a continuing education short course on petroleum economics-how to determine the viability of oil and gas projects. The Geophysical Society of Houston (GSH) is hosting a golf tournament and dinner at the Kingwood Country Club and their Annual Awards Banquet at the Lakeside Country Club. Leon Thomsen, President of SEG, will give a presentation on the role of SEG in the development of geophysics in the 21st century.
The HGS General Dinner features a presentation on Pinedale Field that promises to be interesting because it demonstrates how a major can improve tight economics and increase recovery in a geologically complex and environmentally sensitive area by the intelligent use of existing technology and the innovative development of new technology. This month also features a very interesting article by Mustafa Saribudak and Bob Van Nieuwenhuise on how they used various near-surface geophysical techniques to successfully locate and image an active fault in northwest Houston. Their work demonstrates how the new generation of geophysical tools and software provides a new suite of viable techniques for near surface site characterization and mapping.
Two letters to the Editor are published this month, one by Jim Bishop and the other by Rick Garza. In conjunction with Rick’s letter is a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal by Senator Jim Inhoff of Oklahoma and an introduction to a power point presentation by Lee Gerhard. Rick had asked me to publish the Inhoff letter along with his and had told me about the Gerhard introduction. For the sake of parity I included a short section summarizing some of the results of the series of 4 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments, issued in 1990, 1995, 2001 with the most recent (2007) being released in parts this year. I keep reading how scientists must argue from the data, so this summary includes 3 figures (yes the hockey stick is one) used by adherents and some skeptics alike to back their conclusions on climate change.
Keep those letters coming and think about submitting one of the stories each of you has about your life in the oil patch!