2000 Annual Report - Society of Exploration Geophysicists SEG/Annual Reports/2000 Annual...

2000 Annual Report

Society of Exploration Geophysicists

2000 Annual Reportof the Society of Exploration Geophysicists

Reports of the Officers Page

President . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William (Bill) N. Barkhouse 3President-Elect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sally G. Zinke 4First Vice-President . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mike Bahorich 4Second Vice-President . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zhijing (Zee) Wang 5Vice-President . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Steven L. Roche 6Secretary-Treasurer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jack Kruppenbach 7Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christopher L. Liner 13

Reports of the Standing Committee Chairmen Page

Advisory (President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rutt Bridges 14Annual Meeting Advisory (President-Elect) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richard Verm 14Annual International Meeting 2000 (President-Elect) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Neil Rutherford 15Constitution and Bylaws (Secretary-Treasurer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Walter E. Johnson 15Continuing Education (Vice-President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Don Herron 16Development and Production (Vice-President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Eastwood 16Distinguished Lecture (Vice-President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert Brown and 17

Lynn ComeauxExhibitors (President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Judi MacDonald 17External Activities (President-Elect) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kenneth M.Tubman 18Foundation Scholarship (Secretary-Treasurer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mary Revoir Jones 18Geoscience Center (President-Elect) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gary Hoover 27Global Affairs (Second Vice-President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ali Tura 27Gravity and Magnetics (Second Vice-President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dale Bird 28

and Chuck CampbellGulf Coast Meeting (Vice-President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eric von Lunen 29Honors and Awards (President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . James D. Robertson 31Interpretation (First Vice-President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gary Yu 32Membership (Secretary-Treasurer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Howell W. Pardue 33Mining and Geothermal (President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alan King 34Committee on Nominations (President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brian Russell 34Online Governing Board (Editor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joe Dellinger 35Publications (Editor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Larry Lines 35

(Executive Committee liaison officer listed in parentheses)

SEG 2000 Annual Report

Research (First Vice-President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leon Thomsen 36Reviews (Editor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paul Docherty 37Student Sections/Academic Liaison (Second Vice-President) . . . . Kay Dautenhahn Wyatt 37Technical Standards (Vice-President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mike Norris 38Tellers (President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arthur C. Falkler 39THE LEADING EDGE Editorial Board (Editor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Guillaume Cambois 39Translations (Editor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ilya Tsvankin 40

Reports of the Ad Hoc Committee Chairmen Page

Certification for Petroleum Geophysicists (President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eric von Lunen 41Enhancement of Intersociety Relations (President-Elect) . . . . . . . . . . . Jeffrey D. Johnson 42

Reports of the Representatives Page

American Geological Institute (AGI) Member Society Council (President-Elect) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Craig J. Beasley 43

American Petroleum Institute (API)Central Committee for Telecommunications (Vice-President) . . . . . . . . . Clifford H. Ray 43

International Association of Geophysical Contractors (IAGC) (President-Elect) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Louis I. Schneider Jr. 43

Offshore Technology Conference (OTC)Board of Directors (President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . James D. Robertson 44

OTC Technical Program (President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. O. (Woody) Nestvold 44Petroleum Technology Transfer Council (PTTC)

Board of Directors (First Vice-President) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Glenn R. Breed 45

(Executive Committee liaison officer listed in parentheses)

William (Bill) N. Barkhouse, President

I thank you, the SEG membership, for the opportunityto serve as your President during a millennium year. It isa privilege to be a representative of geophysics in a rap-idly changing world where our science contributes sig-nificantly to the betterment of humankind. I believe thevalue of geophysics is keenly recognized by our mem-bers; observe that the SEG has grown in membership fortwo years in a row.This reflects a trend reversal becausehistorically we have lost membership in periods ofextreme economic volatility and price collapses associ-ated with petroleum and mineral commodities. Theopportunity to be part of a global community committedto the advancement and promotion of geophysics is theprimary driver. SEG members seek a personal and pro-fessional network of colleagues to share the same aspira-tions for and curiosity about the world we live in. Thispassion is at the heart of the reason professionals donatetheir time and ideas to SEG for the benefit of their fellowmembers.

Our members are asking for the opportunity to accessexpert geophysical knowledge in order to learn moreabout geophysics. SEG responds to this demand throughservices and products in the form of meetings,programs,and its Internet site www.seg.org. SEG’s DistinguishedInstructor Short Course, in its third year, is a flagshipexample of key technology presented by a world-classgeophysicist to one out of every 10 SEG membersaround the world.

SEG’s membership is global with 17 000 plus geosci-entists in 106 countries. Nearly half of our membershipis outside the United States. I have represented SEG to avariety of world leaders, ranging from the president of acountry to the president of OPEC to energy ministersand other government officials of several countries.Thelist includes Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, England,Egypt, Finland, India, Mexico, Romania, Scotland, SouthAfrica,Venezuela, and the United States. I have deliveredto at least three dozen gatherings of geoscientists andstudents the presentation “Let’s Do the Numbers” whichoffers an engaging and fun way to learn more about SEG.

An outstanding and dedicated Executive Committeeand SEG Tulsa Business Office, have focused on four keyareas of SEG activity in the past year.The first has beenintersociety cooperation and collaboration—65% ofSEG’s meetings were held jointly with the EAGE andAAPG, an all-time high. My deepest appreciation andacknowledgment are extended to presidents—Markku

Peltoniemi of EAGE and Ray Thomasson of AAPG, both ofwhom are also SEG members.

The second has been identification of new revenuesto sustain SEG’s programs. For the first time, SEG mem-bers have been allowed with their membership renewal,to make voluntary contributions to SEG’s Foundation.Nearly a third of our members responded with donationsof more than $60 000 to the Foundation in year 2000.The SEG Foundation endowment is very close to $8 mil-lion, up from $7.1 million a year ago, in its continuedgrowth to a target of $10 million.

The third has been to increase and accelerate the useof the Internet in serving SEG members. Please seewww.seg.org and experience firsthand the success ofthis strategy in its first 5 years. SEG receives high recog-nition for its many accomplishments in this area,one thatpermits greater access to SEG’s products, services, andknowledge.A pioneering initiative by SEG, in partnershipwith Halliburton’s Landmark Graphics, will allow mem-bers to post professional profiles identifying criticalskills and experience on the Internet. This serviceresponds to a rapidly evolving environment in whichgeophysicists are highly sought for their technicalknowledge.

Fourth, the Executive Committee has undertaken anupdate of SEG’s policies and procedures. This is neces-sary to enable SEG to respond to opportunities in a moretimely manner. An example,now before the SEG Council,is to add a new membership category—Global Member.The role is to reduce the “cost”barrier to new SEG mem-bers from designated countries so they may have accessto SEG’s knowledge, products, and services through theInternet. This strategy responds to requests from manyaround the world for greater access to SEG in a moreaffordable manner. This approach sets the stage to pro-vide additional choices for all members to access SEG’svalued products and services through the Internet on a“pay-for-fee” basis.

In closing, I thank my current Executive Committee—Sally Zinke, Mike Bahorich, Zee Wang, Steve Roche, JackKruppenbach, and Chris Liner—as well as John Butler ofthe SEG Foundation, Lee Lawyer of the SEG FoundationTrustee Associates, Paul Hummel and his team at the SEGTulsa Business Office, and all of the various chairmen ofSEG committees. It is with great personal pride that Iturn the President’s gavel to Sally Zinke, who will be thefirst woman to serve as President of SEG.The new mil-lennium begins with outstanding leadership and excitinggeophysical technology and innovation as well. Thanksto you, the SEG membership.

Executive Committee Reports

3

SEG 2000 Annual Report4

Sally G. Zinke, President-Elect

For 1999-2000, I have had the pleasure of serving asExecutive Committee liaison, contact, or representativeto a number of SEG committees,other organizations, andintersociety groups.Many of these provide specific annu-al reports to SEG. I encourage you to read them.The fol-lowing is an overview:

The Annual Meeting Advisory Committee, chairedby last year’s General Chairman, Richard W.Verm, provid-ed long-range strategic planning for future annual meet-ings, and suggestions for continued improvement of ourannual meeting process. They met with the CalgaryAnnual Meeting Steering Committee to facilitate overlapoperations.

The Annual Meeting Steering Committee withGeneral Chairman Neil E. Rutherford, his Vice-ChairmanW. R. (Bill) Bradley, and Technical Program ChairmanPeter W. Cary worked diligently with the SEG staff toproduce a tremendous Annual Meeting in Calgary inAugust 2000. As the first Annual Meeting in Canada since1977, they can be particularly proud of their efforts inspite of facility and fiscal constraints.The results of theirefforts speak for themselves.

The 2001 Annual Meeting Steering Committeewas formed with John W.Bissell as General Chairman andBob A. Hardage as Technical Program Chairman. Theyhave already had several meetings with the SEG staff andthe Calgary committee to begin the process of develop-ing the programs for the meeting in San Antonio inSeptember 2001.

The External Activities Committee, underChairman Kenneth M.Tubman, has provided informationto our membership on regulatory, governmental, andother types of activities outside SEG that impact ourorganizational planning and our profession. If you areinterested in these kinds of issues, an e-mail update listhas been developed to rapidly provide information. Oneof the key topics for the External Activities Committeethis year has been informational concerning studies ofsound impact on marine mammals.

Chairman Gary M. Hoover and the GeoscienceCenter Committee have made great strides to developoutreach programs, K-12 programs, historical articles,and Web pages.This group is gearing up for fund raising,new designs, and interactive software.

I have also had the pleasure to serve as ExecutiveCommittee liaison to Affiliated Sections/AssociatedSocieties and two ad hoc committees created this year:Enhancement of Intersociety Relations, chaired byJeffery D. Johnson, and Certification for PetroleumGeophysicists with Eric von Lunen as Chairman. I havealso been the Executive Committee contact for Craig J.Beasley who has served SEG as a member of the Councilof the American Geological Institute this past year.Louis I. Schneider Jr. has been the SEG representative tothe International Association of Geophysical

Contractors. I have been his Executive Committee con-tact also.

In addition, I have served the SEG as a representativeto the AAPG Insurance Committee. This is the firsttime that SEG has actively participated in meetings relat-ed to this program. SPE and its members have recentlyjoined this program. SEG hopes that, by becoming moreactive, we can enhance services to our members andreduce costs.

A large amount of my energy has been focused on var-ious intersociety cooperation programs. Each year SEGparticipates in the Intersociety Presidential Summit.This year SEG hosted this group at our Annual Meeting inHouston and participated in an AAPG-hosted meeting atits Annual Meeting in New Orleans.The summit consistsof President, President-Elect, and Executive Director fromAAPL,AGI,AIPG, EAGE, GSA, SEG, SEPM, SPE, and SPWLA.The primary goals are to establish communication, pro-vide cross-feed on best practices, and provide a frame-work for cooperative ventures.This year the group madegreat progress in establishing areas of overlap and poten-tial cooperation and then gathered information on eachorganization’s approach and methodology for each of 18mutually defined issues.The results will help forge futureplans for consolidation of some efforts and cooperationin other areas.A smaller subgroup comprised of the threelargest participants—SEG, AAPG, and SPE—met severaladditional times to try to advance some more limitedcooperative ventures.This group has defined itself as theVirtual Intersociety Cooperation Committee(VICC). Four areas of potential cooperation weredefined: Meetings, Joint Distinguished Lecturer Pro-grams,Web Sites, and revenue neutral Joint Membership.Four intersociety committees were appointed to beginmoving forward on each issue.Representation from eachorganization will consist of a staff representative andcommittee chairman.

I have enjoyed the opportunity to work closely withthe other Executive Committee members, the SEGBusiness Office Staff, and our Executive Director PaulHummel.These people and all the rest of our fine com-mittees have made tremendous strides this year!

Mike Bahorich, First Vice-President

I thoroughly enjoyed my year as First Vice-President.SEG is a wonderful organization with highly dedicatedstaff and volunteers.The more I became immersed in theorganization this year, the more impressed I became withthe values of SEG.

The Web will increasingly provide value to SEG mem-bers.The most important functions of our Society are topublish and archive geophysical knowledge,and our Website is playing an important role in this endeavor. SEGmembers around the globe have online access to awealth of information, including articles from GEOPHYSICS

and THE LEADING EDGE.

SEG 2000 Annual Report 5

Another critical role our Society plays is facilitatingthe connection of geophysicists who wish to exchangeideas. Annual Meetings provides formal and informalopportunities through technical papers, workshops, andcourses. The Web will increasingly play a role in con-necting people from around the world.

Software is now available that enables SEG membersto input information about their interests and experi-ence.This information is then searchable by other mem-bers, connecting geophysicists who wish to be connect-ed. Members can include information such as technicalinterests or basins where they have explored for hydro-carbons. Consultants can use this software to communi-cate their expertise to members, and employers cansearch for geophysicists with needed skills and experi-ence.

The software, hardware, and maintenance were pro-vided at no charge to the Society through a generousdonation. Plans are to roll this software out at the 2000Annual Meeting in Calgary. I thank the SEG staff, OnlineGoverning Board, and the Executive Committee for help-ing me accomplish this during my term.

SEG members get great value for relatively modestdues. In fact, dues generate a minor portion of the grossrevenue of the Society.The convention and other sourcesprovide more to the financial bottom line. I feel that duesshould be kept as low as possible to enable those withless disposable income to enjoy the benefits of member-ship.This is particularly important to those in less devel-oped nations.

Rather than raise dues, our Executive Committee con-sidered alternative revenue sources.There appears to beenough land at the SEG office to support an additionaloffice building. With the desirability of the South Tulsalocation, a real estate developer might gladly shoulderthe financial risk of constructing an office building.Aftera period of years, ownership of the building could revertto the SEG providing significant financial benefits. OurExecutive Committee initiated a feasibility study towardthis endeavor. Additional revenue sources such as thiscould keep our dues low for years to come.

Zhijing (Zee) Wang, Second Vice-President

Time goes by fast when you are having fun! It’s beena great pleasure serving the SEG members for the past 10months. I would like to thank our members for electingme and giving me this great opportunity to serve ourSociety. I would also like to thank Chevron’s manage-ment for providing the time, support, and financialresources to carry out my SEG duties.

Because of the continued downsizing of our industry,all of us are very busy with our regular job responsibili-ties. Yet the 1999-2000 SEG Executive Committee hasworked extremely hard to serve our members and be fis-cally responsible.To minimize the disruption of our reg-

ular jobs, we had all our meetings on weekends. I feelextremely fortunate for having the opportunity to workwith this EC.

Aided by the teamwork and dedicated support of theSEG office staff, the EC took many actions and madesome key decisions in the past year that should benefitthe majority of our members.A few examples:

• Authorized expenditure for digital review and pub-lication of GEOPHYSICS and THE LEADING EDGE

• Proposed a new category of membership: GlobalMembers.These members will have to be residentsand citizens of countries designated by SEG. Theywill pay a reduced membership and receive servic-es only electronically

• Secured, via a donation of Lattix Locator fromLandmark, software that will allow SEG members topost their résumés

• Held several joint meetings with AAPG, EAGE, andSPE to investigate possible intersociety cooperation

• Proposed a policy on Conflict of Interest• Renamed the SEG Foundation Museum to the SEG

Geoscience Center and hired a full-time staff mem-ber, Susan Henley, to manage the center’s activities

I was EC liaison to the Global Affairs Committee (for-merly International Affairs Committee), the StudentSections/Academic Liaison Committee, and Gravity andMagnetics Committee.All have done a marvelous job thispast year.Their activities are highlighted below:

The Global Affairs Committee (GAC) proposed andthe EC approved that this committee’s name be changedfrom the International Affairs Committee.Based on mem-bership distributions, the GAC is divided into 11 regions:Latin America, Africa, Middle East, Asia, Pacific, CIS,Europe, U.S. Northwest, U.S. Northeast, U.S. Southwest,and U.S. Southeast. The EC has already appointed Re-gional Coordinators for all but the four U.S. regions.ManyRegional Coordinators are already organizing localevents, coordinating CE courses, and helping the ECappoint SEG representatives for regional meetings, etc.The EC and GAC are currently in the process of appoint-ing SEG Country Representatives.

Following the recommendation and request by theGAC, SEG President Bill Barkhouse will appoint an adhoc committee to study the feasibility of a proposedstructural change of SEG operation.

At the upcoming SEG Annual Meeting in Calgary, theGAC will organize four regional luncheons: CIS/Europe,Africa/Middle East, Latin America/ULG, and Asia/Pacific.

The Student Sections/Academic Liaison (SS/AL) Com-mittee, led by Kay Wyatt, continues to reach out to stu-dent members. The student newsletter is getting verypopular.The first Joint SEG/AAPG Student Expo was heldlast year in Houston. This year’s Expo should be evenbetter.

The SEG SS/AL Committee is sponsoring developmentof a CD to be distributed to high school juniors andseniors. This CD will contain a wealth of information,including a basic introduction to geophysics with lots of


animation, movie clips of working geophysicists, hands-on exercises, experiments, and much more. I encourageeveryone interested in geoscience education to call or e-mail Kay Wyatt to get a copy of this prototype CD andshow it to high school students or science teachers.

The SEG Business Office has appointed PatriciaWacker as full-time Student Affairs Coordinator.

In the past year, the Gravity and Magnetics Committeeadopted GXF-3 as the official grid data exchange formatfor gravity and magnetics data, and agreed that GDF-2shall be the de facto point/line data exchange format.Asubcommittee, formed by the Gravity and MagneticsCommittee and the Technical Standards Committee, isworking to establish GXF-3 as an official SEG data stan-dard. GDF-2 will be considered as well after a sufficientperiod of use and final development. The Gravity andMagnetics Committee is also planing a workshop titled“The Crust and its Structure” to be held at the AnnualMeeting.

In summary, I have had a great time serving our mem-bers. During my term, I have met many great people andmade many friends. I have learned a lot from all withwhom I have interacted, especially my fellow ExecutiveCommittee members who showed me the highest pro-fessional and ethical standards and what public serviceswere all about.All of us on the Executive Committee hada common goal—to serve our members, protect ourSociety,and guide and position our Society for the future.

I enjoyed working with the SEG office staff, commit-tee chairpersons, and many members. It has been anextremely fulfilling 10 months, and I would certainly dothis again.

Steven L. Roche, Vice-President

It has been an honor to serve as Vice-President on the1999-2000 SEG Executive Committee. Much of the workdone by the Executive Committee is approving the hardwork and recommendations of others. Without theirefforts,SEG could not function.Other “work”done by theExecutive Committee consists of initiating directivesleading to future benefits for SEG members. I am proudto have participated in the leadership of SEG.

The 1999-2000 SEG Executive Committee served ashort term (only 10 months), due to the early date of the2000 Annual Meeting in Calgary. Serving as Vice-President has brought enlightenment to me concerninghow progress and changes occur within SEG. Largely,Executive Committees are stewards of SEG serving tocontinue the good practices instigated by previous com-mittees, correcting past programs that need direction,discontinuing ineffective or poorly performing pro-grams, and hopefully initiating new programs and direc-tives for the good of SEG members.Rarely can a programbe conceived, initiated, and implemented during a singleExecutive Committee term. I believe the real progressand change within SEG occurs through three entities, the

presidents, the committees, and dedicated individualswho possess a vision and work to turn their vision intoreality. I applaud these individuals and encourage alldesiring to improve our Society to follow their examplesand leadership. If you sense a need for change, talk to ourPresident or President-Elect. If you believe in the cause ofa particular committee, contact the committee chairmanabout participating. If yours is a new cause, request thatit be placed on the Executive Committee agenda for con-sideration. Executive Committee meetings are open toSEG members and issues can be presented in person forconsideration and action.

As Vice-President, I served as liaison between variousSEG committees and the Executive Committee. I consid-er the committees and the SEG staff the actual “workengines” of SEG. I recognize their efforts toward main-taining and improving our Society. I wish to comment ona few committee activities but in no way take credit fortheir hard work.

Ben Thigpen has stepped down as the SEG represen-tative to the American Petroleum Institute Subcommitteeon Telecommunications. His was important work, help-ing to safeguard the radio frequencies used by the geo-physical industry. Ben was appointed in 1977 and servedfor 23 years. Cliff Ray has agreed to continue Ben’sefforts.

The Continuing Education Committee, chaired byDon Herron, is an integral part of training SEG members.I consider this service to be one of the primary purpos-es of SEG, resulting in real, tangible benefits for practic-ing geophysicists. The CE Committee, instructors, andstaff in the SEG Business Office have improved theorganization, communication, course quality, and finan-cial performance of the Continuing Education Program.They deserve congratulations.

The Distinguished Instructor Short Course (DISC) for1999-2000 was “Shear Waves from Acquisition toInterpretation,” presented by R. J. Garotta. Peter Duncanand Simon Spitz cochair this subcommittee. They havedone an excellent job. Since its inception, DISC has beenfunded by the SEG operating budget with financial sup-port from industry sponsors. This year the ExecutiveCommittee recommended that the SEG Foundation fundDISC.The SEG Foundation has accepted this recommen-dation. DISC is an example of a worthy service that can-not pay for itself but will be funded through endowedfunds and industry sponsorship. This is continuing theefforts of previous Executive Committees (see John P.Castagna’s, First Vice-President, SEG 1999 AnnualReport).

The Executive Committee approved the AncillaryData Standard (ADS) as recommended by the TechnicalStandards Committee, chaired by Mike Norris.This com-mittee also improved and expanded its Web page foraccess by the geophysical community.

The Gulf Coast Spring Technical Symposium Com-mittee, together with the Geophysical Society ofHouston, successfully held a two-day symposium on


”Multicomponent Reflection Seismic.” This symposiumfocused on applied methodologies and complementedrelated meetings giving attention to multicomponentseismic theory. Eric von Lunen, Ingrid Swendig, and thecommittee members did a good job in organizing thissymposium.

Finally, I would like to recognize the excellent workdone by one group and two individuals. President BillBarkhouse and President-Elect Sally Zinke work tirelesslyand endure significant travel to meet the demands ofleadership.Additionally, the hard work done by the SEGstaff members often goes unrecognized. They are anexcellent group.Thank you for this opportunity to serveas Vice-President of SEG.

Jack Kruppenbach, Secretary-Treasurer

I finish my tenure in office with a deep and abidingappreciation of the wisdom the founding members dis-played in formulating the Constitution and Bylaws thatset the policies for administering the direction of ourorganization.The Treasurer’s election to one year on theExecutive Committee, followed by two years as a mem-ber of the Finance Committee engenders the combina-tion of new ideas and on-the-job experience, whichallows the Society to be flexible, yet not aimless. Thecomposition of our governing organization was estab-lished so that formulating policies takes into considera-tion diverging views.

The major role of the Treasurer is to chair theFinance Committee, which is responsible for oversee-ing the financial health of SEG and establishing theSociety’s financial policies. Fellow committee membersAngie Stracner and Steve Rutherford provided patienceand great guidance in moving me into the responsibili-ties of the office. It is a pleasure to work with them, andI am grateful for their commitment to providing a soundfinancial policy to support the allocation of resources tomeet present and future Society objectives.

I extend my sincere thanks to Jack Ingram,AssociateDirector, Finance, for his professional accounting experi-ence, professional concern for not-for-profit type ofaccounting, and steadfastness in adherence to prudentaccounting principles. Publication of the detailed SEGfinancial report, prepared under Jack’s supervision, willsoon appear on the SEG Web site.

Jack, along with the rest of the very capable peoplewho comprise the staff in our Tulsa office, are the motorthat keeps our SEG vehicle running smoothly through-out the sometimes bumpy road of yearly administrationchanges.

As of the date this report is being submitted, ourSociety’s fiscal year,which will end June 30,2000,has notbeen closed, so year-end financial figures are not yetavailable. However, in round numbers, estimated rev-enues will approximate $9 000 000, expected expenses

will total about $8 950 000, and net income for the yearshould be about $50 000.With long-term investments ofapproximately $3 300 000 available for rainy days, theSociety continues to be financially healthy and ready toinvest in future programs that will benefit the entiremembership for years to come. The final audited finan-cial statements, which normally accompany this report,will be published for later distribution as soon as theyare available.

The Treasurer has oversight of the MembershipCommittee, which is ably chaired by Howell Pardue.Wecurrently have 17 263 members, including CorporateMembers.The membership is the body and lifeblood ofSEG. Preliminary talks were held with the AmericanAssociation of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) aimed atarranging joint undertakings that might enhance the costeffectiveness of both organizations. A single membershipcharge in instances where dual memberships occur isthe first point under consideration. Reduced member-ship costs are something worth consideration becausethere has been a decrease in active and corporate mem-berships since last year even though total membershipincreased slightly.The number of members dropped fornonpayment of dues doubled since last year. I urge youto read the committee chairman’s full report.

I serve as liaison to the Constitution and BylawsCommittee. Norman Domenico, who served as chair-man of this committee for years, with excellence,thoughtfulness, and great resolve, has stepped down.Thechairmanship was passed to Walter Johnson, who hasserved on this committee in the past. I feel confident thatWalter will carry forth the high standards that Normanfollowed during his tenure. I refer you to the chairman’sreport concerning the activities of this increasinglyimportant committee.

The Treasurer also serves as liaison to the Founda-tion Scholarship Committee. This function of SEG,dear to the heart of every member, is ably chaired byMary Revoir Jones.The research grants, scholarships, andgeneral educational support under the purview of thiscommittee are SEG’s investment in the future of thisSociety, the technology, the industry, and the world. Aspecial memorial scholarship fund was established inhonor of Marge Gerhart who faithfully served SEG for 27years, mostly in handling the mountains of paperworkgenerated by the scholarship program.

Reflecting on the importance of the various aspectsof SEG while preparing this report impelled me to takethe liberty of mentioning a loss that has affected megreatly and one that is also a loss for SEG. Daniel S.Tudorpassed away this past year. Dan held high standards ofintegrity for his personal and professional departments.If you did not have the good fortune of knowing him,you were deprived of an inspiration. He gave much toSEG. Geophysics and an ethical SEG were a great part ofhis life. Dan was responsible for my continuing interestin SEG, and encouraged me to become more active inserving it.

8 SEG 2000 Annual Report


Christopher L. Liner, Editor

This year, the SEG Executive Committee voted to fundestablishment of an online peer review system. SEG isworking in conjunction with other societies to developan online module that will be integrated with the localsystem already in use by the SEG manuscript-trackingpersonnel. Implementation is expected by the end of theyear. The online system promises to speed delivery ofpapers and reviews, reduce mail costs, and streamlinethe workflow of the tracking personnel.

The Editor wishes to acknowledge the superlativeefforts of several SEG staff members who make the pub-lication of GEOPHYSICS possible—Judy Wall, Sheral Danker,and Judy Hastings.They make the job of Editor manage-able and enjoyable.

Over the years, there have been many initiatives andproposals to improve readability of GEOPHYSICS articles. It

is a good idea to do the very best we can as authors andeditors to deliver well-written material to our members.This has been, and will remain, a priority for those of uswho are the current stewards of GEOPHYSICS. It is impor-tant to understand that every member of this Societybenefits from GEOPHYSICS, whether or not that membercan understand it. It is a tide that raises all ships by pro-viding the seeds of tomorrow’s technology. A quotecomes to mind from James Clerk Maxwell, creator of theelectromagetic theory.When a Victorian lady asked himof what use was his theory, he replied,“Madam, what isthe use of a new born baby?”

Following are statistics reported for papers submittedJune 1, 1999-May 31, 2000:A total of 259 papers and dis-cussions were submitted, a decrease of 57 papers fromthe previous year. It is traditional to list submissions bycountry and type of employer.These summaries for thepast year are given in Tables 1 and 2.Table 3 shows man-uscript handling statistics.

Table 1: Origin of papers submitted for publicationin GEOPHYSICS by countryJune 1, 1999 - May 31, 2000

USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15United Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14Norway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9Taiwan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5Netherlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5Switzerland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5Korea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Argentina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Greece . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Kuwait . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Peru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1South Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Sweden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Turkey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .259

Table 2: Origin of papers submitted for publication inGEOPHYSICS by employerJune 1, 1999 - May 31, 2000

Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .159Oil Companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25Service Companies & Manufacturers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Research Institutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22Governments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19Consultants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Mining Companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2Retired . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .259

Table 3: Manuscript handling statistics

Avg. No. Days Avg. No. Days

Required for Between Acceptance

Year First Review & Publication

1991-92 168 1761992-93 155 1811993-94 180 1781994-95 155 2101995-96 158 N/A1996-97 133 N/A1997-98 167 1801998-99 161 1771999-00 174 202

AdvisoryRutt Bridges, Chairman

The Advisory Committee consists of the five mostrecent SEG Past Presidents and exists to advise the cur-rent SEG Executive Committee and President on issuesraised either by the Executive Committee or theAdvisory Committee. During the 1999-2000 term, theAdvisory Committee met twice, once during the SEGAnnual Meeting in Houston and once in Dallas followinga meeting of the Honors and Awards Committee andadvised the President on various issues of concern to themembership. We also provided comments and observa-tions upon request via e-mail throughout the year onother topics. Hopefully the model of occasional face-to-face meetings supplemented by ongoing e-mail accesswill ensure the timely, effective, and regular counsel ofPast Presidents to the current President and ExecutiveCommittee.

Annual Meeting AdvisoryRichard Verm, Chairman

The Annual Meeting Advisory Committee exists totransfer experience between successive Annual Meetingsand help the SEG Executive Committee plot a strategiccourse of action regarding future Annual Meetings.Thiscommittee consists of the general chairmen of the twomost recent past Annual Meetings, the current and nextgeneral chairmen, along with the four respective techni-cal program chairmen, and the chairman of theExhibitors Committee.

Several problems identified at the New OrleansAnnual Meeting were addressed during the HoustonAnnual Meeting. Electronic submission of papers for theTechnical Program was immensely improved thanks tothe Online Governing Board and the SEG Web staff.Theprocess was redefined and streamlined.The new proce-dure had almost 99% success in registering and transmit-ting papers to SEG. Another change in this year’s Tech-nical Program was the highly advertised absolute dead-line for submitting a paper.Authors managed to prepareand submit a near record number of abstracts by thedeadline. By adhering to a strict deadline, the TechnicalProgram Committee can arrange its review process tomeet printing deadlines.The Houston Annual Meeting, as

in New Orleans, gave a CD-ROM of the TechnicalProgram to every delegate.

The Business of Geophysics, a program initiated inNew Orleans, was continued and expanded in Houston.This program addresses current business issues facingthe geophysical and exploration industries. In Houston,the program consisted of two forums. One forumfocused on small entrepreneurs, the second addressedthe larger issues of industry consolidation. Both receivedmoderate attendance.

A new item at Houston was a nascent online sched-uler.This Web-based application which allowed delegatesto set up a personalized schedule for papers was wellreceived.

Another new feature, although lightly attended, was aset of career-focused workshops directed by profession-al career counselors.These workshops were available toany delegate for a nominal charge.These were added latein the Annual Meeting planning cycle in response to thedecline in the geophysical industry. Participation couldhave been much higher had the workshops beenplanned early enough to be included in the AnnualMeeting Announcement.

Finally, the Research Committee put on an all-dayworkshop on the future of research.This workshop wasadvertised as a forum, open to all, at no charge. It ransimultaneously with the regular workshops, whichcharged a fee. By all accounts, the forum was a successwith a large attendance.

On a more strategic issue, the committee discussedhow to make the convention appealing to a larger audi-ence.First and foremost was the need for social events tobring the delegates together. The opportunity to meetcolleagues is an important draw to the Annual Meeting.Social events provide the means to bring large groups ofdelegates together. Another avenue would be to makethe Technical Program more interpreter-friendly. Onesuggestion was to schedule case histories and interpre-tation-related papers to highlight a particular aspect ofthe Technical Program.

Fortunately, Annual Meetings continue to be a suc-cessful undertaking for the Society. Houston, while notreaching the record numbers set by New Orleans,reached near-record levels in attendance and exhibits.This year’s Annual Meeting in Calgary is poised to dupli-cate the Houston results. The challenge is to keep theAnnual Meeting relevant to the Society’s membershipand the exploration industry.As the industry changes, theAnnual Meeting will have to evolve in response.

Reports of the Standing Committee Chairmen

14


Seventieth Annual MeetingNeil Rutherford, General Chairman

SEG is returning to Calgary, Alberta, Canada for SEG2000.A record number of technical submissions present-ed the Technical Committee with a serious schedulingproblem. More than 700 oral papers and poster paperswere submitted. The result is a half-day increase in theTechnical Program.

During the past year and a half, one question hascrossed my mind continually: “What brings exhibitorsand delegates to our Annual Meeting and trade show insuch large number?” Is it the technical presentations, thetrade show technology, the chance to comparison shopfor new products and services, or the chance to meetcustomers, suppliers, and peers for face-to-face discus-sions? I’m sure the answer is “all of the above,” but whyis it so important?

Although I don’t have the statistics, I’m sure there hasbeen a significant demographic shift in SEG membership(at least in North American petroleum companies) fromlarge companies to smaller independents and consult-ants during the last decade.At the same time, some largegeophysical contractors are growing rapidly and tryingto sell customers on a “cradle to grave” program foracquisition, processing, and interpretation needs. Ourbusiness is changing rapidly, but for one week a year wehave a chance to meet old friends and catch up withnew developments.

The 2000 Steering Committee has tried to present anarray of opportunities to satisfy the broad range of atten-dees.We have tried to respond to an increase in techni-cal submissions by increasing the length of the technicalprogram.We have tried to accommodate as many exhibi-tors as possible although the space available was notquite enough. Lastly, we have tried to allow time for thesocial interaction that is an important part of our annualritual.

If you like the result, let me know ([email protected]). If you think the meeting was seriously lackingin certain areas, I would like to hear from you. Lastly ifyou helped sponsor some of our convention events, Iwant to thank you. The Applied Science Program,International Showcase, Student Reception, Icebreaker,and Evening Entertainment would not happen if it werenot for your generosity.

Committee Members: Neil Rutherford, GeneralChairman; Bill Bradley, Vice-Chairman; Peter Cary, Tech-nical; Jamie Enachescu, Spouse Program; Trevor Boyce,Applied Science; Lisa Michetti, Arrangements; HassanHassan, International Showcase; Judi MacDonald,Exhibitors; and Gary James, Sponsorship.

Constitution and BylawsWalter E. Johnson, Chairman

This has been a transition year for the Constitutionand Bylaws Committee. I had a unique opportunity toappreciate all that Norm Domenico has done for SEG.Constitution and Bylaws (C&BL) Committee membersthis past year were: Steve Danbom, George McCalpin,and Bill Valenta (Vice-Chairman). All matters were han-dled effectively by e-mail and, as before, no physicalmeetings were necessary.

Paul Hummel, SEG Executive Director, requested thatthe C&BL Committee review proposed amendments tothe SEG Constitution and Bylaws approved by theExecutive Committee at its June 4-6,1999 meeting.Theseconsisted of modest changes to Constitution Article III,Section 3, Honorary Membership, and Section 4, LifeMembership, and also to Constitution Article II, Honorsand Award, Section 3.A new Section 8 of Bylaws ArticleVII, Election of Officers, presents a procedure forrescheduling dates for submitting names of candidatesand associated information,ballot mailings and counting,and announcement of election results when the AnnualMeeting is scheduled for other than during the first halfof September. All the foregoing were approved. Notapproved was a proposed addition of a new Section 12to Constitution Article III, Membership, which providesfor joint SEG/AAPG membership.This was premature inthat joint membership had not been fully discussed andagreed upon by the SEG and AAPG executive commit-tees.

The C&BL Committee was requested to determinethe acceptability of the constitution of the KoreanSociety of Exploration Geophysicists (KSEG) which peti-tioned for SEG affiliation.This differed excessively fromthe SEG Model Bylaws furnished as a guide to a societypetitioning for SEG affiliation. The Committee recom-mended that the KSEG be requested to revise its consti-tution to more nearly conform to the SEG Model Bylaws,especially inclusion of a code of ethics and a dissolutionprocedure.

Brian Russell, SEG President, requested that the C&BLCommittee consider alternatives for SEG affiliation of asociety that does not qualify for affiliation as aSection/Associated Society. This request was promptedby the committee’s review of the Korean Society ofExploration Geophysicists’ bylaws. As noted above, thesediffered excessively from the SEG Model Bylaws. Thecommittee recommended,when a society petitioning forSEG affiliation does not qualify for affiliation as aSection/Associated Society, it be offered affiliation as anAllied Society. Unlike affiliation as a Section/AssociatedSociety, affiliation as an Allied Society does not permitvoting delegates at the SEG Council meeting but, rather,participation at the Council meeting by accredited non-voting delegates.


Another constitution (termed “Statute”), that of theBrazilian Geophysical Society (SBGf), which petitionedfor SEG affiliation, was submitted to the C&BLCommittee for review. This suffers considerably fromconfusing Portuguese to English translation due largelyto inappropriate and nonexistent English words. None-theless, principal elements of the SEG Model Bylawsappear to be present in some form in the lengthy SBGfconstitution. It was recommended that the SBGf seek amore accurate translation of its constitution for reviewby the C&BL Committee.

The C&BL Committee was asked to look at a pro-posed change in the Bylaws to allow for a Global Mem-bership classification that for a nominal membership feewould allow access to the SEG electronic media fordeveloping countries.There were no problems with theproposed Bylaws; however, the Constitution may have tobe modified as well.

I wish to express my appreciation to the C&BLCommittee members for their excellent advice and sup-port, and to all the staff of SEG for all the help during thistransition. A special thanks to Norm Domenico for hishelp.

Continuing EducationDon Herron, Chairman

During the past year (July 1, 1999 to June 30, 2000),the Continuing Education program offered the thirdannual Distinguished Instructor Short Course (DISC).This year’s DISC is “Shear Waves from Acquisition toInterpretation”and is being presented by Robert Garotta.To date, approximately 800 people have attended thecourse at nine sites in six countries. Future offerings arescheduled for 10 cities in seven different countries.TheCE Committee and SEG express their deepest thanks to Phil Schultz, who presented “The Seismic VelocityModel as an Interpretation Asset” for DISC 1999, to PeterDuncan, DISC Subcommittee Chairman, and Ruth Ives,SEG Distinguished Programs Coordinator, for their tire-less efforts in successfully organizing and promotingDISC.

For DISC 2001, Fred Hilterman will present “SeismicAmplitude Interpretation.” Initial plans are to offer thecourse at approximately 20 sites around the world.

The CE Committee has continued to seek out newcourses and refine procedures for evaluating new courseproposals.Among the procedures recently implementedis definition of Category Review Groups (CRGs) for eachof the six major course categories in the curriculum:Seismic Data Acquisition, Seismic Data Processing,Seismic Data Interpretation, Potential Fields/Non-Seismic, Near Surface Geophysics, and Exploration andProduction Geophysics. Each CRG is led by a CECommittee member who is responsible for expeditioushandling of course proposals in his group and review of

materials for proposed courses. Following the new pro-cedures, four courses were approved, two provisionallyand two for the curriculum in 2001:“Reservoir SeismicAttributes,” to be presented by Quincy Chen, and“Seismic Fundamentals,” to be presented by DonMacpherson.

The committee also has extended the renewal periodfor existing courses from two to three years (instructorswere very glad to hear this), and has established aDistance Learning Subcommittee under the direction ofRod Cotton.

Following AAPG’s Summit on Committees inFebruary, CE committees of both SEG and AAPG estab-lished mutual links through which each society can ben-efit from the other’s experience in developing and main-taining thriving CE programs. Both committees willensure that at least one of its members attends theother’s regularly scheduled meetings, and minutes of themeetings will be exchanged. Under the leadership oftheir CE committees, SEG, AAPG, and possibly SPE, planto jointly sponsor a short course on pore pressure pre-diction, the first offering of which would be at the SEG’s2001 Annual Meeting in San Antonio. An advertisementsoliciting instructors for this course appeared in theApril issue of THE LEADING EDGE.

In mentioning THE LEADING EDGE, we thank SteveRoche, SEG Vice-President, for his discussion of Contin-uing Education in the President’s Page in the April issue.We look forward to the upcoming September issue,which will feature “Education and Careers” as its SpecialSection theme, with Jennifer Swanson as guest editor.Several committee members have contributed articlesfor this issue that will highlight how ContinuingEducation goes about its business and provides educa-tional services to the SEG membership.

In closing, I would like to thank Jennifer Swanson,SEGManager of Geoscience Education, Jill Thompson, SEGContinuing Education Coordinator, the ContinuingEducation Committee members, and the ContinuingEducation faculty (if I may refer to our instructors assuch) for their time and effort throughout the past year.The Continuing Education program owes its growth andsuccess to their sincere interest, commitment, and goodhumor.

Development and ProductionJohn Eastwood, Chairman

The Development and Production Committee (D&P)was established to encourage and support exchanges ingeoscience and engineering technologies used in reser-voir management of the oil and gas field. This is donethrough sharing research, development of new tech-nologies, and real-world field experiences via case histo-ries related to development and production geophysics.These goals are achieved through focused meetings,


workshops, special issues of SEG publications, and inter-action with sister societies.

Several major activities highlighted our efforts in1999-2000:

The D&P Committee continues to have an active roleat the SEG Annual Meeting. Gene Sparkman arranged forthe D&P luncheon speaker Jerry Wenzel, Manager,Deepwater, BP Amoco, at the 1999 SEG Annual Meeting.The luncheon was well attended. Phil Christie, DanEbrom, and John Eastwood chaired the 1999 D&PWorkshop at the Annual Meeting The workshop was wellreceived and included both posters and oral presenta-tions from last summer’s (1999) forum, “Time-lapseMeasurements in Reservoir Management.”

Wayne Pennington organized the special Develop-ment and Production issue of THE LEADING EDGE in March2000.This issue included some interesting papers takenfrom the summer forum. We also continued to supportthe Offshore Technology Conference by assisting WoodyNestvold and his committee to find Development andProduction talks suitable for the OTC.

Ashley Francis chaired the Tenth Annual SEG Develop-ment and Production Forum,“Quantitative Prediction ofReservoir Properties Using Geophysical Data” in Snow-mass, Colorado, May 14-19, 2000. This was the earliest‘summer’ forum the D&P Committee has held. In spite ofthe early date, chosen so as not to interfere with thisyear’s SEG Annual Meeting in Calgary, the forum was wellattended (70 plus participants) and very successful.There were eight full sessions with topics ranging fromFacies and Lithology Prediction to Conditioning to Staticand Dynamic Data. Ashley chaired an excellent forumwith much discussion during the day and often into thenight with the aid of a pint of ale. Michele Sterner (SEGMeetings Coordinator) was instrumental in organizingthe Snowmass summer forum. The D&P Committee ismost appreciative of the hard work both she and KarenWolf (SEG Technical Program Coordinator) put forthbefore and during the forum.

Finally, the SEG D&P Committee cochaired a jointSPE/SEG summer forum “Deepwater Development andProduction,” July 9-14, 2000. Jack Caldwell was SEGcochair.

At this year’s SEG Annual Meeting in Calgary theDevelopment and Production Committee will again beactive. On Wednesday, August 9, we will have ourDevelopment and Production Luncheon. On Friday,August 11, Ashley Francis and John Eastwood willcochair the Development and Production Workshop.OurDevelopment and Production Committee meeting willbe held Thursday, August 10. If you are interested inbecoming an active participant in the Development andProduction Committee, please attend this meeting.

Next year’s summer forum will be cochaired by NazihAl-Najjar and Keith Hirsche and is tentatively scheduledfor June 24-29, 2001. The topic for the forum is “Inte-gration of Geological, Geophysical, and EngineeringData: The Quest for the Ultimate Reservoir Model.”

Finally, I have finished my two-year term as theDevelopment and Production Committee Chairman. Wewill announce/introduce the new chairman at the com-mittee meeting in Calgary.

Distinguished LectureRobert P. Brown, CochairmanLynn D. Comeaux, Cochairman

Mike Cox served as the SEG’s Spring 2000 Distin-guished Lecturer. His lecture,“Static Corrections for the21st Century,” has been presented to 10 Sections/Asso-ciated Societies in North America and has been video-taped for future presentation on the Web.

SEG and AAPG have agreed to jointly support a lecturetour each year.The purpose of this effort is to bring localgeophysical and geological groups into a common forumwith a lecture relevant to both disciplines.

Each year, SEG and AAPG Distinguished Lecture Com-mittees agree upon and submit a lecturer for approval byboth Executive Committees. The two Business Officesalternate years in handling tour scheduling and logistics.AAPG organized the inaugural 1999-2000 tour; SEG’sresponsibilities begin in 2000-2001. To accommodatethis program, one of the two (Fall or Spring) SEGDistinguished Lectures is replaced by the SEG-AAPGDistinguished Lecture.The fee for this program is $335for SEG Sections and AAPG Societies and $270 for uni-versities.

In 1999-2000,Alistair Brown was the first lecturer ofthe new combined AAPG-SEG Distinguished Lecturertour with his lecture: “Let the Data Speak to You, or Howto Improve Your 3-D Seismic Interpretation.”He made 15presentations at AAPG and SEG local Sections/Societiesand universities in the United States. David Lumley willbe the 2000-2001 SEG-AAPG Distinguished Lecturer, pre-senting his lecture “The Next Wave in ReservoirMonitoring:The Instrumented Oilfield.”This will be thefirst combined tour to be organized by SEG.

Chris Ross,Technical Program Chairman for the SEG’s1999 International Exposition and Annual Meeting inHouston, will serve as Chairman beginning at the end ofthe SEG Annual Meeting in August. Bob Brown and LynnComeaux will serve on the Distinguished LectureCommittee until the close of the Annual Meeting in2004.

ExhibitorsJudi MacDonald, Chairman

The Exhibitors Committee was formed a few yearsago to be a voice for all exhibitors at the Annual Meeting.This year’s committee has a great cross-section that rep-resents the largest and the smallest exhibitors. Our plan


for SEG 2000 in Calgary is to be on site at the beginningof set-up and to talk with most of the exhibitors one-on-one. During the show, it is our hope that if exhibitorsneed assistance, the committee will be able to respondquickly.The committee members are:

Micki AllenJohn BairstowJytte CuretonBernie DeLormeDiana FrederickMaureen IglesiasToni MarcellusTerry NeffendorfPhil NewbyDixie PochéAnnette SmithNot many issues were brought up at the exhibitor’s

meeting in Houston 1999. However, a couple of itemswere discussed. Questions about material handling havebeen a concern for a couple of years now (e.g., if therewas a way to include this into the exhibit cost.) TheSteering Committee decided, for the time being, materialhandling fees will be left as is. Another issue discussedwas loading and unloading exhibit material for smallexhibitors.The Steering Committee will be sure to havesigns on site, along with a notice in the Exhibitor’sManual.

The close working relationship between the SEGBusiness Office and exhibitor representatives ensures asuccessful exhibition that will continue the standard ofexcellence established at past Annual Meetings. As ofearly May, Steve Emery, of the SEG Business Office, esti-mated booth sales to be about 1100.There is a waitinglist for exhibitors at SEG 2000 in Calgary.

It has been a great year working with SEG,and, togeth-er with my committee members, I wish success to the2001 Annual Meeting in San Antonio.

External ActivitiesKenneth M. Tubman, Chairman

This committee was previously named the PublicAffairs Committee. The name was changed this year toreflect the Executive Committee’s desire to focus on arange of external influences on our profession, in addi-tion to government activities.

This past year there has been an effort to reinvigoratethe External Activities Committee, which had beenessentially inactive for a number of years.The first chal-lenge was to build the membership. Current member-ship includes: Ken Tubman (chairman), John Castagna(vice-chairman), Jack Caldwell, Albin Kerekes, ShawnRice, Ernie Sanders, Carl Sondergeld, and Lynn Trembly.Efforts continue to add more members and provide geo-graphic diversity to the committee.

The committee focused on clarifying activities and

goals.The agreed goals are: to promote the image of geo-physics as a profession, to share and disseminate infor-mation within the Society, to share information about theprofession, and to represent the profession outside theSociety and industry, and to upper management withinthe industry.

Part of the information sharing is to tap into activitiesof other societies. For example, the American GeologicalInstitute has an active Government Affairs program.Com-mittee members receive monthly updates from the AGIprogram, and we are maintaining a distribution list ofSEG members who wish to receive these updates.

The committee has also taken a strong interest in therecent activity about the effects of sounds on marinemammals.This is an issue of great relevance for the com-mittee and the profession. Jack Caldwell has been veryactive in this area. He has joined the committee and willcontinue to push for action in this area.The committeesupports his activities and will sponsor a workshop he isorganizing for the upcoming SEG Annual Meeting.

SEG Foundation ScholarshipMary Revoir Jones, Chairman

The SEG Foundation Scholarship Committee met onApril 27 at Veritas DGC in Houston to select scholarshiprecipients for the 2000-2001 academic year. Scholarshipsto 106 students totaled $183 500; 73 were renewals and33 were to new recipients. We received a total of 247applications.The committee is pleased to report contin-ued success in increasing the dollar level of scholarshipawards, raising the average award from $1529 last year to$1731 for 2000-2001.

The Foundation Trustee Associates secure scholarshipfunds in the form of annual and endowment contribu-tions from corporations, individuals, and SEG sections.Our ability to increase scholarship awards for 2000-2001was made possible through generous contributions.Special recognition is given to the new Charlie and JeanSmith scholarship(s) totaling $13 000 annually, the new$12 000 Robert Sheriff scholarship and the increase inAubra Tilley’s sponsored scholarships from $6000 to $12 000. Many thanks to the Executive Committee, theTrustee Associates, and especially to the many contribu-tors who continue to invest in the future of geoscience.The complete list of scholarship recipients and donorsfor 2000-2001 is included at the end of this report.

Scholarship Committee members who served thispast year were Bill Pearson, Richard Cieslewicz, LynneEdleson, Jim Flis, Vicki Messer, Mike McCormack, andKaren Dittert. I take this opportunity to recognize thecommittee members for their support, dedication, andenthusiasm throughout the year. Each committee mem-ber spends many hours reviewing and assessing thenumerous applicants, along with their ongoing responsi-bility of communicating with all current scholarship


recipients. The committee is especially grateful to PhyllisConnor,Associate Director of the Foundation, for assum-ing the task of completing last year’s scholarship awardsand preparing this year’s applications for review follow-ing the death of Marge Gerhart. Marge spent the betterpart of her 27-year tenure with SEG coordinating SEG’sScholarship Program, and her dedication, efficiency, andpleasant personality will be greatly missed. The SEGFoundation has established a memorial scholarship fundin Marge’s name to commemorate her many contribu-tions to the Society. Contributions may be sent to SEGFoundation,8801 South Yale,Tulsa,Oklahoma,74137.Thecommittee welcomes Sue LoBianco as the new Scholar-ship Program Coordinator. Sue, who has worked closelywith Marge over the last 11 years, has made a smoothtransition from Member Services to the ScholarshipProgram.

SEG Foundation Scholarship Sponsors forthe 2000-2001 Academic Year

Agarwal, Dave $ 1000AGIP $ 1000ARCO $ 2000Baird, Ralph W. $ 1000Born,Ted Memorial $ 1000Bridges, Rutt $ 1000Chevron US $ 2000Conoco Inc. $ 3000Cottrell, Rodney $ 1000Dallas Geophysical Society $ 6000Denver Geophysical Society $ 3000Exxon Production Research $ 8500Geophysical Society of Alaska $ 1000Geophysical Society of Houston $ 5500Geophysical Society of

Houston/Carleton-Farren $ 5000Geophysical Society of Oklahoma City $ 4000Geophysical Society of Tulsa $ 6000Hilterman, Fred $ 1000Hohmann Memorial $ 4000KEGS $ 1000LaCoste $10 000Landmark Graphics $13 000Permian Basin Geophysical Society $ 2000Phillips Petroleum $ 1000Schlumberger $ 2000Schoenberger, Michael $ 1000Shell Oil Foundation $ 2000Sheriff, Robert E./Geophysical

Society of Houston $12 000Smith, Charlie & Jean/Geophysical Society of Houston $13 000

Southwest Louisiana Geophysical Society $ 2500Tilley,Aubra $12 000Veritas DGC $ 2000Western Geophysical $18 000Worthington, David $ 2000

Source of FundsIndustry, Sections, Individuals $150 500Other Individual Contributions $ 4000SEG Foundation $ 29 000

Sponsored ScholarshipsCorporate 36Individuals 20SEG Sections 22General Contributions and FoundationFund Contributions and Earnings 28

Funds Committed to ScholarshipsCorporate, Individual, Section, Honorary,SEG Membership, Donations, and SEG Foundation Grant $183 500

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SEG Foundation Contributions for Scholarships

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Recipient School Award AmountAndy Aakhus-Witt Colorado School of Mines ARCO #1 $1500Adebola Olubunmi Adesida University of Georgia SEG General #18 $1500Ahmed Omar Alahdal University of Oklahoma Geophysical Society of Oklahoma City #3 $1000Maria Annecchoine Ecole Polytechique de Montreal SEG International #3 $1000Jessica Marie Arnoldi Texas A&M University Geophysical Society of Houston #4 $1000Bradley William Artman Stanford University Charlie and Jean Smith/Geophysical Society of Houston #1 $5000Stacey Ann Axton Colorado School of Mines Michael Schoenberger $1000Jianyong Bai Texas A&M University Western Geophysical/Carl Savit $5000Gregory Benson Colorado School of Mines Rutt Bridges $1000

SEG General #10 $1000Alison Joy Berenback Brown University SEG General #6 $1000Michael Robert Brudzinski University of Illinois ExxonMobil #3 $1500Gregory Calvert University of Oklahoma Aubra Tilley #6 $2000He Chen University of Oklahoma Aubra Tilley #1 $2000Tianyou Chen University of Texas, Dallas Dallas Geophysical Society #3 $2000Elizabeth Scott Cochran University of California, Santa Barbara ExxonMobil #1 $2000Rucsandra Marie Corbeanu University of Texas, Dallas Dallas Geophysical Society #1 $2000Claire A. Currie University of Western Ontario SEG General #2 $2000Kelby Jamison Derenick University of Washington Shell Oil #1 $1000Sheridan Dodge University of California, Los Angeles SEG General #15 $1000Amanda Leigh Eads University of Hawaii SEG General #14 $1000Todd A. Ehlers University of Utah Landmark Graphics #6 $2000Julie A. Elders Monash University SEG International #1 $1000Hamed Zeidan El-Mowafy University of Tulsa Geophysical Society of Tulsa #2 $2000Tefera Eshete University of Texas, El Paso SEG General #21 $2000Rachel D. Finnegan Montana Tech Western Geophysical #6 $1000Andrew Michael Frassetto University of South Carolina SEG General #7 $1000Oron Frenkel University of California, Berkeley Landmark Graphics #9 $1000Paul Edward Gettings University of Utah Lucien LaCoste $10 000Mariana Gherasim University of Houston Robert E. Sheriff/Geophysical Society of Houston $12 000Tamara Louise Gipprich University of Michigan ARCO #2 $ 500Hansel J. Gonzalez University of Oklahoma Charlie and Jean Smith/Geophysical Society of Houston #2 $2000Thomas Joerg Gorgas University of Hawaii Phillips Petroleum $1000Maria G. Kirtland Grech University of Calgary Canadian Exploration Geophysical Society $1000

SEG General #11 $1000Patricia M. Gregg University of Missouri, Rolla Ralph W. Baird $1000Monica Hartmann New Mexico Tech SEG General #16 $1000Andrew Hastings University of Missouri, Rolla Geophysical Society of Tulsa #1 $2000Shane Hickman University of Missouri, Rolla Fred Hilterman $1000Denise Joy Hills University of Hawaii ExxonMobil #6 $1000Loren Hoffman California Institute of Technology ExxonMobil #4 $1500David August Hollema Colorado School of Mines Hohmann Memorial #1 $1000Jaqueline Ann Hope University of Western Ontario SEG General #3 $2000Earnest A. Hull Colorado School of Mines Charlie and Jean Smith/Geophysical Society of Houston #4 $2000John Edward Hunyadi Colorado School of Mines AGIP $1000

SEG General #9 $1000Michael Leon Jessop Montana Tech Western Geophysical #5 $1000Sarah Stewart Johnson Washington University Chevron USA $2000Timothy Chad Johnson Boise State University Landmark Graphics #10 $1000James Robert Jordan, Jr. Rice University SEG General #20 $1000Darcy Karakelian Stanford University Charlie and Jean Smith/Geophysical Society of Houston #3 $2000Ryan Keisler Harvard University SEG General #5 $1000Kathleen Mary Keranen Michigan Tech Ted Born Memorial $1000Kerry W. Key University of California, San Diego Hohmann Memorial #2 $3000Jane Killingsworth Texas A&M University Geophysical Society of Houston #1 $2000


Recipient School Award AmountKa Wai Helen Lau Dalhousie University Landmark Graphics #7 $500Chunfeng Li University of Tulsa Geophysical Society of Tulsa #3 $1000Benjamin Randall Lichtwardt Colorado School of Mines Conoco #1 $2000Edwin Ivan Linares University of New Orleans Southwest Louisiana Geophysical Society #2 $1500Janessa Link California Institute of Technology Shell Oil #2 $1000Linong Liu Chinese Academy of Sciences SEG General #13 $ 500Shaoming Lu University of Texas at Dallas SEG General #23 $1500Yunqian Ma Tsinghua University Landmark Graphics #8 $ 500Ha Thanh Mai University of Oklahoma Geophysical Society of Oklahoma City #2 $1000Christine Malinowski Millersville State College Landmark Graphics #4 $1000Ellen P. Mallman University of Wisconsin Rodney Cottrell $1000Jason Ray Marsh Colorado School of Mines Charlie and Jean Smith/Geophysical Society of Houston #5 $1000Matt McGinley University of Wisconsin David Worthington $2000Jennifer C. McGuire Texas A&M University Geophysical Society of Houston/Carleton-Farren $5000Bradley David McHugh Massachusetts Institute of Technology ExxonMobil #5 $1000Jason Ronald McKenna Southern Methodist University Dallas Geophysical Society #2 $2000Suzanne Kay Moore Colorado School of Mines Dave Agarwal $1000Matthew Graham Morris University of Missouri, Rolla SEG General #4 $1000Rachel Newrick University of Calgary SEG International #4 $1000Thang Hong Nguyen University of Oklahoma Geophysical Society of Oklahoma City #1 $2000Sean O’Brien University of Texas,Austin Geophysical Society of Houston #3 $1000Foldrunso Ayinde Ogunsola Federal University of Technology SEG International #5 $ 500German Yury Ojeda Florida Int’l University SEG General #19 $1500Robin Lynn Paarlberg Arizona State University Veritas DGC $2000Steve Taechun Paik California Institute of Technology Geophysical Society of Alaska $1000Passakorn Pananount Cornell University SEG General #8 $2000Robin Ann Pearson McGill University Western Geophysical #3 $1500Claire K. Perry University of Western Ontario Landmark Graphics #1 $4000Karen Marie Phillips Memorial University of Newfoundland SEG International #2 $1000Lindsey Lee Poth University of Oklahoma Aubra Tilley #2 $2000Stanley J. Radzevicius Ohio State University Landmark Graphics #2 $1000Heather Nichole Ramsey University of West Virginia Western Geophysical #1 $2000Kristi N. Rasmusson Texas Tech SEG General #22 $1500Marcus Alexander Rollins Macalester College Conoco #2 $1000Theodore Royer Colorado School of Mines Charlie and Jean Smith/Geophysical Society of Houston #6 $1000Daniel Samake University of Oklahoma Aubra Tilley #3 $2000Debashish Sarkar Colorado School of Mines Western Geophysical #2 $2000Dawn Astrid Schippe Colorado School of Mines Denver Geophysical Society #1 $1000Paul Schmeider University of Tulsa Geophysical Society of Tulsa #4 $1000Catherine Snelson University of Texas, El Paso Permian Basin Geophysical Society $2000Kyle Thomas Spikes University of Kansas Schlumberger #1 $1000Jeremy Strohmeyer University of Missouri, Rolla Landmark Graphics #5 $1000Qiang Sun University of Oklahoma Aubra Tilley #4 $2000Shenjie Sun University of Oklahoma Aubra Tilley #5 $2000Kin-Man Edmond Sze Massachusetts Institute of Technology Western Geophysical/Henry Salvatori $5000Martin Jordan Terrell Colorado School of Mines Landmark Graphics #3 $1000

SEG General #12 $1000Constantinos Tzimeas Texas A&M University Geophysical Society of Houston #2 $1500Daniel Maurice Ulmer Princeton University SEG General #17 $1000Erin Lynn Wallin Colorado School of Mines Denver Geophysical Society #2 $2000Bujin Wang University of Alberta SEG General #1 $1000Johnathan Andrew Wooley Colorado School of Mines ExxonMobil #2 $1500Hui Yan Tsinghua University Western Geophysical #4 $ 500Rhonda Mae Yates Mississippi State University Schlumberger #2 $1000Beth Maria Yuvancic Louisiana State University Southwest Louisiana Geophysical Society #1 $1000


SEG Geoscience CenterGary Hoover, Chairman

The SEG Geoscience Center Committee, formerly theSEG Foundation Museum Committee,was active over thepast year to achieve SEG objectives.Committee membersinclude Paul L. Beale, Norman Domenico, Craig Ferris,Jon Ferris, John N. Gallagher, Becky Hoover, John S.Knapp,Art H. Ross, Richard E. Snider, Gene W. Sparkman,and Robert Wyckoff. Sally Zinke, President-Elect, EC,serves as liaison to our committee. Judy Paull andJennifer Swanson assist in coordination with SEG’sBusiness Office.

The SEG Executive Committee voted at its March2000 meeting to change the name of the SEG FoundationMuseum to the SEG Geoscience Center; approve aCenter operating budget for the current fiscal year, andcreate a new SEG staff position of SEG GeoscienceCenter Coordinator. The position was recently filled bySusan Henley.The committee is very pleased that Susanis actively pursuing the job of developing and operatingthe Geoscience Center.

1999 Annual MeetingA Museum Committee booth was assembled and

operated by the Geophysical Society of Houston andcoordinated by Art Ross and Tom Fulton. The boothincluded a vintage recording cab, alidade, and seismicinstrumentation. The SEG Traveling Museum providedtwo display cases containing vintage seismic, gravity, andmagnetic instrumentation. A prototype audio/videokiosk under development for the Physical Museum wasalso displayed. Don Howlett, inventor of the seismicfloating-point amplifier, was a featured speaker at thebooth.

Norman Domenico organized a videotape session atthe Annual Meeting that captured the experiences ofseveral geophysical leaders. Included were Craig and SueFerris, Sven Treitel, Gene Sparkman, and Bob Sheriff.

Committee ActionsIn conjunction with Sally Zinke, proposals were

debated following the suggestion by the ExecutiveCommittee that a curator be hired to assist with Museumoperation and fundraising. Gene Sparkman made a pres-entation to the Executive Committee at its December1999 meeting regarding the committee’s visions forchanging the name and the scope of the Museum.A sub-committee comprising of Judy Paull, Bob Wyckoff, andGene Sparkman developed a recommendation for thename change and the job description for a coordinator(curator).The Museum Committee voted unanimously atits February 18, 2000 meeting to rename the SEGFoundation Museum to the SEG Geoscience Center andto recommend hiring a full-time coordinator. Theseactions were proposed to and accepted by the ExecutiveCommittee in March.

These changes reflect an expansion in scope from his-torical object archival and display to include hands-on,minds-on interactive exhibits and workshops designedto attract students, teachers, and the general public, aswell as geophysicists. The committee expects that thisbroadened scope will increase interest and provide addi-tional opportunities for funding.

Geoscience Center ProjectsProjects are in progress at the Geophysical Resource

Center to attract and interest visitors who might have lit-tle background in geoscience.One colorful mural depict-ing marine geophysics has been constructed and placedon the wall. Two other murals depicting marsh anddesert exploration are now being designed. Two proto-type audio/video kiosks were constructed and evaluated.Several kiosks will be located around the Center todescribe the objects for visitors, and how their use hasled to modern geophysical techniques.

The Smithsonian National Museum of American His-tory has loaned 16 objects to the SEG Museum for dis-play. This includes the Mintrop Field Seismograph andthe Gulf Gravity Pendulum Apparatus. Both instrumentsattract interest from geoscientists and the public. Thecommittee intends to continue borrowing instrumentsfrom other museums and to loan instruments andexhibits to other institutions, including colleges and uni-versities, for display and educational purposes.

Elwin M. Peacock recently donated the manuscript tothe Center titled The Reflection Seismograph,written byits inventor, J. C. Karcher.This manuscript was presentedin 1976 to Peacock’s father, H. B. Peacock, in recognitionof his role in making the first discovery of petroleumusing the reflection seismograph.

Plans are to include modern geophysical instrumentsas well in the Center, and to provide historical informa-tion describing how geophysical techniques haveevolved from early roots. Consequently, donations ofmodern instruments and displays are welcome, includingseismic sources, geophysical and geological data inter-pretation systems, and other devices.

The committee encourages anyone interested in help-ing develop the SEG Geoscience Center to contact usand become a part of its growth.

Global AffairsAli Tura, Chairman

The Global Affairs Committee (formerly InternationalAffairs Committee) is the largest SEG committee both inmembership and number of volunteers.The GAC (GlobalAffairs Committee) is becoming more dynamic andgoing through fundamental changes that eventually maylead to a reorganization of SEG (see the June 1999 issueof TLE, page 664).

Statistics show that from 1988 to 1998,non-U.S.mem-


bers of SEG increased from about 30% to 40%.To betterserve global members, the GAC has reorganized and ini-tiated several new programs. GAC currently has a Chair-man (Ali Tura), Past-Chairman (not yet active),Vice Chair-man (Samir Moaty), Region Coordinators, Representa-tives, and members.The 11 regions of the GAC, and theRegional Coordinators are:

• Latin America: Paul Cunningham and Maria Angela Capello

• Africa: Fred Aminzadeh and George Smith

• Middle East: Dick Edwards and Yi Luo• Asia: Alfred Liaw and A. G. Pramanik• Pacific: Shane Coperude and Mike Smith• CIS: Tagir Galikeev and

Alexander Zhukov• Europe: Simon Spitz and Aldo Vesnaver• Northwest U.S.: Not yet active• Southwest U.S.: Not yet active• Southeast U.S.: Not yet active• Northeast U.S.: Not yet active

The GAC is currently assigning representatives.Therewill be one representative from each country or state ineach region who will directly communicate with theRegion Coordinators. Establishing this structure willallow easy communication from local sections to theSEG Executive Committee. SEG President Bill Barkhousehas already started to use this new organization to easilyand rapidly communicate about specific issues. In addi-tion, this new structure has been instrumental in assist-ing the SEG in several other ways, such as appointmentof SEG members to the Organizing/Technical Committeeof SEG-sponsored international meetings and findinglocations for distinguished lectures.

A valued social responsibility of the GAC is to organ-ize luncheons during SEG’s Annual Meeting.This year, atthe SEG Annual Meeting in Calgary, the GAC will have thefollowing luncheons and speakers:

• CIS/European Luncheon,Simon Spitz (CGG,France)• Africa/Middle East Luncheon, Agnes Jikelo

(SOEKOR, South Africa)• Latin America/ULG Luncheon, Ivan Simoes-Filho

(ANP, Brazil)• Asia/Pacific Luncheon, Deseng Li (CNPC, China)The GAC will have its winter meeting on August 6,

during the SEG Annual Meeting in Calgary.Other functions of the GAC are:• Serving as liaison to all SEG Standing Committees

for their activities in the GAC regions• Interacting with associated sister societies, SEG sec-

tions, and council representatives in GAC regions• Holding local GAC meetings during SEG-sponsored

international meetings to coordinate events in theseregions

• Promoting SEG globally and coordinating all acti-vities with local societies or associated sistersocieties.

• By way of country/state Representatives, assistingSEG in:— Conferences sponsored by SEG by providing

feedback on venue of conference, level of sup-port, and appointment of SEG member to theOrganizing/Technical Committee

— All education programs (CE, DISC, DistinguishedLecture)

— Coordinating publicity, promoting membership,and providing information on SEG services

• Working with the International Showcase Com-mittee for selection and sponsorship of appropriateexhibitors from the region

• Coordinating with THE LEADING EDGE on special edi-torial sections about the GAC regions

The GAC is in the process of putting up a new Webpage that will help distribute information globally.Vikramaditya Sen has the main responsibility and is plan-ning on having the new Web page active by early August.

In its current structure, the GAC is well positioned toassist SEG to become a global society.

GAC is a large committee with many members andissues.Therefore, I would like to especially thank PamelaTerekhova from the SEG staff for the truly exceptionalassistance she has provided over the years. OrlandoChacín and Tony Del Pino have been instrumental inestablishing and promoting the changes to the GAC.

Gravity and MagneticsDale Bird, ChairmanChuck Campbell, Vice-Chairman

The Gravity and Magnetics Committee convenes twiceeach year, once in the spring and again at each AnnualMeeting.The role of the Committee in SEG and the explo-ration industry is to enthusiastically promote and expandthe use of gravity and magnetics methods.Priority will begiven to projects that encourage integrated geophysics inexploration, and projects that educate the membershipabout these useful and necessary tools.This report sum-marizes the Committee’s activities and plans with regardto SEG Annual Meetings, publications, awards, continuingeducation, and Committee projects.

Committee activities at the 1999 Annual Meetingincluded three technical sessions, a poster session, aluncheon, and a workshop. Our Committee’s representa-tion on the Technical Program Committee for the 2000convention in Calgary is led by Ted Glenn.Three techni-cal sessions, a luncheon, and a workshop are planned.The Gravity and Magnetics Committee will sponsor onepost-convention workshop titled “The Crust and ItsStructure,”convened by Guy Flanagan.This year’s GravityMagnetic Technical Luncheon speaker during the con-vention is Tom Hennig, program manager from NIMA incharge of the recent Shuttle SAR mission.The ContinuingEducation two-day Gravity Magnetics course will be taught


in Houston this year by Michal Ruder on June 27-28.The award winning Geologic Applications of Gravity

and Magnetics:Case Histories, edited by Richard Gibsonand Patrick Millegan, an AAPG/SEG book has sold morethan 1000 copies. Since beginning in January 1998, theTLE feature,“The Meter Reader,” has been very popularand has included interesting, informative, and importantarticles. Many thanks to Patrick (Pat) Millegan, Gravityand Magnetics Publications Subcommittee, for his workwith authors and TLE editorial staff.A project to updateSEG’s first Monograph, Gravity and Magnetics forGeologists and Seismologists, by L. L. Nettleton, is beingled by Tom LaFehr and Stuart Hall. Because this book isan all-time SEG best seller, and Nettleton was one of ourcommunity’s leading scientists, virtually all of the con-tents will be unchanged; however, recent technologiesand methods will be added as footnotes, side-bars,boxes,or appendices. The monograph has been scanned, andinitial chapters are reworked.

In the past year, the Gravity and Magnetics Committeeadopted GXF-3 as the official grid data exchange formatfor gravity and magnetics data and agreed that GDF-2shall be the defacto point/line data exchange format. Asubcommittee, formed by members of the Gravity andMagnetics and Technical Standards committees, is work-ing to establish GXF-3 as an official SEG data standard.GDF-2 will be considered as well after a sufficient periodof use and final development. Subcommittee membersare Alan Reid, Dave Pratt, Mike Norris, Ian MacLeod,Richard Hansen, Chuck Campbell, and Dale Bird.

Many thanks to Chuck Campbell and Nick Hoffmanfor their work to update and maintain the committee’sInternet Web page.The page offers information about thegravity and magnetics community, distributes informa-tion about the Committee, and links to other gravity-and-magnetics-oriented Web pages.

All who are interested in active participation andjoining Internet discussions with practicing gravity andmagnetics specialists from all over the world, includ-ing professionals from universities, research institutions,and natural resource exploration companies, can join the Gravity and Magnetics User Group. The group issupported by Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory atColumbia University. To subscribe send a note to:[email protected] and type subscribegrvmag-l <your email> as the message (not in the subjectline).

2000 Gulf Coast Meeting andGeophysical Society of Houston 2000Spring Symposium – April 25-26Eric von Lunen, General and Technical Chairman

The 2000 Spring Symposium on MulticomponentReflection Seismic was held April 25-26 in Houston,

Texas. The 172 attendees represented a broad profes-sional spectrum.Topics emphasized all phases of techni-cal implementation. Presentations and open discussionswere directed to technical concepts needed to imple-ment mode-converted seismic waveform or “pure com-pressional integrated with shear wave image” interpreta-tion concepts.These topics were useful in assessing thepotential application in complex image enhancement,lithology and fluid identification, Poisson’s ratio applica-tions, and fracture characterization

The agenda for the two days was:

April 25

Jack Caldwell, Schlumberger-Geco Prakla“An Overview of Marine 4-Component Seismic Tech-nology”

Michael C. Mueller, BP Amoco“A Strategy for Vector Interpretation of Seismic Data”

James Musser, Green Mountain Geophysical-I/OCompany“Multicomponent 3-D Survey Design and Statics Issues”

Gerard Beaudoin, BP Amoco“3-D-4-C OBS Processing:The Need for Vector Fidelity”

Simon Spitz, GCC-Americas“Teal South Phase I and II 4-D-4-C: Project Review andProcessing Update”

Xianhau Zhu, PGS“Converted Wave Statics and Velocity Analysis”

Luncheon SpeakerBill Barkhouse, SEG President“Presidential Address on Technical and ProfessionalChallenges of the Future”

William Chmela, Read-Well Services“2-D Wave Theory Applied to North Sea OBC Data”

Colin Sayers, Schlumberger-Geco Prakla“Anisotropic Velocity Analysis using Mode Converted S-Wave”

James Simmons, UTX-GEG“Radical Transverse (SV-SH) Coordinates for 9-Compo-nent 3-D Seismic Reflection Data Analysis”

Richard R.Van Dok,Western Geophysical“Stratigraphic Description of the Morrow Formationusing Mode-Converted Shear Waves; Interpretation Toolsand Methods for Three Land Surveys”

Heloise Bloxsom Lynn, Lynn Inc.“Review of the Ninth International Workshop on SeismicAnisotropy”

Open Forum 1“Acquisition Techniques and Processing Techniques ofMulticomponent Reflection Seismic”


April 26

Steve Mitchell, Fairfield Industries”Four Component Seismic Acquisition Utilizing RadioTelemetry”

John Tessman, I/O“Blackfoot 3-C/3-D,A VectorSeis™ Case History”

Mike Reblin, Unocal “Unocal Experiences with 4-C. The Good, The Bad, andThe Ugly”

Simon Spitz, CGG“The Road Ahead: Inversion of the Converted ModeRecorded on the Sea Floor: Structure (A) and Strati-graphy (B)”

Doug Foster, ARCO“AVO Attributes of Long Offset P waves and P-SWConverted Waves”

Luncheon SpeakerRobert H.Tatham, Professor UTX“An Historical and Current Perspective of Multicom-ponent Reflection Seismic”

Jason Robinson, Schlumberger-Geco Prakla“Maximizing the Value of 4-C Seismic Data, An IntegratedCase Study”

Bertram Nolte,Texaco“Anisotropic Prestack Depth Migration of ConvertedWave Data from the Gulf of Mexico”

Dan Ebrom,Texaco“Analysis of Multicomponent Seismic Data from OffshoreGulf of Mexico”

Dave Carlson, PGS“Converted Wave AVO Attributes for Large Volumes ofData: Encouragement with Caution”

Jim Gaiser,Western Geophysical“Enhanced PS-Wave Images and Attributes Associatedwith Vector-coordinate Systems”

Heloise Bloxsom Lynn, Lynn Inc.“The Mobil 3-D Full-Azimuth Full-Offset P-wave Surveywith Converted Wave Multicomponent Calibration”

Open Forum-2“Interpretation Techniques of Multicomponent Reflec-tion Seismic”

Papers Discussed in Open Forum to be included:

Ron Windels, Fairfield Industries“Four Component Seismic Acquisition and Processing”

Brian H.Hoffe and Laurence R.Lines,University of Calgary“Depth Imaging by Elastic Wavefields,Where P meets S”

M. K. McLeod, R. A. Hanson, C. R. Bell, Chevron and S.McHugo, Schlumberger“The Alba Field Ocean Bottom Cable Seismic Survey:Impact on Development”

Francois Audebert, Pierre Yves Granger, and ArianeHerrenschmidt, CGG Americas“CCP-Scan Technique: True Common Conversion PointSorting and Converted Wave Velocity Analysis Solved byPP and PS Pre-Stack Depth Migration”

Ronald Windels, Fairfield Industries“Telemetry Noode System: Processing of First BreakEnergy for Accurate Orientation Determination”

Seventy-one attendees at the meeting requested thepresentations be included in a CD-ROM.This was beingaddressed at the end of May.Although no formal assess-ment of presentation quality was undertaken, commentsindicated the quality was very good.

The success of all symposiums is based on everyone’seffort. This year the meeting was closely supported bythe efforts of

Ingrid Swendig Cochairman and Arrangements

James Cozzens Publicity CoordinationMichel Simon Fund Raising CoordinationLloyd Weathers First Vice President GSHSteve Roche SEG Vice-PresidentHeloise B. Lynn Liaison Coordinator,

Technical MeetingSpecial mention goes to Connie Van Schuyver and

Cem Okan Kilic who graciously helped prepare note-books and aid presenters in last minute details.

Financially the meeting was a success.The 172 atten-dees paid $25 800 in fees, and an additional $7050 wascollected in sponsor support. These offset symposiumcosts of $19 950, leaving approximately $12 900 netincome for the Geophysical Society of Houston. Thesponsor cash contributors included:

Diamond GeophysicalPan Canadian PetroleumKelman TechnologiesSercel, Inc.Petroleum Geo-ServicesVeritas DGCGrant Geophysical CompanyBaker Hughes Corporation

This spring symposium’s financial success was partic-ularly strong in light of the industry recession last year.

My deep appreciation to all contributors and atten-dees of the 2000 Spring Symposium. This supportemphasizes the desire we all share to learn and applythis learning to today’s challenging problems.


Honors and Awards CommitteeJames D. Robertson, Chairman

One of the most important functions of SEG is honor-ing those who have made significant contributions tothe science and profession of exploration geophysics. Byunanimous agreement of the Honors and AwardsCommittee and Executive Committee, the 2000 hon-orees are:

Maurice Ewing Medal: Stanley H. Ward for his distin-guished contributions as a researcher in electricalgeophysics, an educator of geophysics students, a dis-seminator of geophysical knowledge through publica-tions and workshops, and a volunteer in professionalsociety activities.

Honorary Membership: A. Peter Annan for his devel-opment of ground penetrating radar into a significanttechnology in exploration geophysics.

Larry Lines for his outstanding contributions toexploration seismology through publishing, teaching,editing, lecturing, and mentoring.

Virgil Kauffman Gold Medal: No 2000 award.

Enterprise Award: Thomas A. Smith for foundingSeismic Micro-Technology Inc. (SMT), a leading ven-dor of PC-based 2-D and 3-D seismic interpretationsoftware.

Reginald Fessenden Award: Robert E. Howard for theoriginal development and subsequent improvementsto the first commercial 3-D seismic horizon eventpicker (ZAP).

J. Clarence Karcher Award: Fernanda AraujoGasparotto for her pioneering work on the attenua-tion of internal multiples in marine seismic data.

Tapan Mukerji for his many insights and advances incharacterizing reservoirs through multidisciplinaryapplication of rock physics, wave propagation theory,and geostatistics.

Tamas Nemeth for his exceptional work on the imag-ing of sparse, irregularly sampled seismic data.

Life Membership: Georgiy N. Gogonenkov for his con-tribution to Moscow 1992, the historic first geophysi-cal meeting and exposition between SEG and theRussian exploration geophysics community, and forhis role in forming the Russian Section of the SEG.

Jean-Claude Grosset for his pivotal role in forging amutually beneficial partnership between the Societyof Exploration Geophysicists and the EuropeanAssociation of Geoscientists and Engineers.

L. C. (Lee) Lawyer for his contribution to THE LEADING

EDGE through his monthly column, “From the OtherSide.”

Special Commendation: W. Scott Baldridge andGeorge R. Jiracek for their exceptional efforts in devel-oping and directing the SAGE Program (Summer ofApplied Geophysical Experience).

Stephen J.Hill for his outstanding work as chairman ofa special ad hoc committee established to review SEGelection procedures.

Lu Bang-gan for his leadership of exploration geo-physics in China through both managing the conver-sion of the Chinese seismic industry from analog todigital technology and establishing professional andcommercial ties between CNPC and non-Chinese geo-physical service companies.

Distinguished Achievement: University of TorontoGeophysics Laboratory for its contributions to the sci-ence of geophysics in general and exploration geo-physics in particular over the past 160 years.

Best Paper in GEOPHYSICS 1999:Manual seismic reflection tomographyGary E. Murphy and Samuel H. Gray

Honorable Mentions

Converted-wave reflection seismology over inhomoge-neous, anisotropic mediaLeon Thomsen

Imaging structures below dipping TI mediaRobert W.Vestrum, Donald C. Lawton, and Ron Schmid

Estimating depth of investigation in dc resistivity andIP surveysDouglas W. Oldenburg and Yaoguo Li

Concepts of normal and dip moveoutChristopher L. Liner

3-D moveout inversion in azimuthally anisotropicmedia with lateral velocity variation: Theory and acase studyVladimir Grechka and Ilya Tsvankin

Best Paper in THE LEADING EDGE 1999:Recent advances in multicomponent processingXianhuai Zhu, Suat Altan, and Jianchao Li

Honorable Mentions

Elastic impedancePatrick Connolly

Improving seismic data for detailed structural inter-pretationJonny Hesthammer

Best Paper Presented at the 1999 Annual Meeting:Fault whispers: Transmission distortions on prestackseismic reflection dataPaul J. Hatchell

Honorable Mentions

What is the best seismic attribute for quantitative


seismic reservoir characterization?Dennis Cooke, Arcangelo Sena, Greg O’Donnell, TetangMuryanto, and Vaughn Ball

AVO lithology prediction using multiple seismic attrib-utesDaniel Hampson and Todor Todorov

Velocity-independent datuming of seismic dataPanos G. Kelamis, Eric Verschuur, A. J. Berkhout, andKevin E. Erickson

Meren Field, Nigeria: A 4-D seismic case studyDavid E. Lumley, Alan G. Nunns, Guy Delorme, A. A.Adeogba, and Michel F. Bee

Best Poster Paper Presented at the 1999 AnnualMeeting: The construction of subsurface illumination andamplitude maps via ray tracingGlenn Bear, Chih-Ping Lu, Richard Shih-Ming Lu, IanWatson, and Dennis Willen

Honorable Mention

Development of alternative interpretation models anddiscriminating between them using a borehole gravitysurvey and a walkaway checkshot surveyTerry Knighton, Steve Western, Glenn Morton, RobertFleming, and Alan Herring

Best Student Paper Presented at the 1999 AnnualMeeting:Robust and stable velocity analysis using the HuberfunctionAntoine Georges Guitton, Stanford University

Awards of Merit:Multi-configuration ground penetrating radar dataJean-Paul van Gestel, University of Texas at Austin

Wave-equation migration velocity analysisPaul Constantin Sava, Stanford University

Best Student Poster Paper Presented at the 1999Annual Meeting:Analysis of seismic wave dynamics by means of inte-gral presentation and method of discontinuitiesAnton Albertovich Duchkov, Institute of Geophysics SBRAS, Novosibirsk, Russia

Award of Merit: AVO analysis for converted wavesKatiusca del Valle Álvarez, Simon Bolivar University, Edo.Miranda,Venezuela

On behalf of the Honors and Awards Committee, Iextend congratulations to the distinguished recipients ofthese honors and awards and thank them for their con-tributions.The Honors and Awards process succeeds byreceiving nominations from individual SEG members,SEG committees, and SEG sections and associated soci-eties.We thank all who submitted nominations for 2000awards and who provided supporting letters and otherdocumentation. Nominations for those who were not

selected will be retained for consideration by futureHonors and Awards Committees.

The Honors and Awards Committee comprises thepast five SEG presidents: James D. Robertson, Gordon M.Greve, Fred J. Hilterman, Rutt Bridges, and Brian H.Russell. I thank my fellow committee members for theirdiligent and thoughtful efforts in researching andconsidering the nominations for SEG’s awards as thisprocess has consumed many hours of their time during1999-2000. Chairing this committee concludes my presi-dential obligations to SEG, and I sincerely appreciate theopportunity to have been part of SEG’s leadership duringthe past seven years.

Interpretation CommitteeGary Yu, Chairman

The SEG Interpretation Committee’s (IC) goal is toserve the interpretation community and make the jobeasier.To achieve it we need to understand today’s com-petitive exploration and production environment. Inorder to manage risk and increase profit margin, theindustry has focused more and more on integrated inter-pretation—a team of geophysicists, geologists, and reser-voir engineers working side by side on a project. Theobjective is to shorten cycle time and have a prospectfrom discovery to production as soon as possible.

The IC and the AAPG Geophysical Integration Com-mittee (GIC) traditionally hold biannual joint meetings toexchange ideas and pursue common interests.We normal-ly meet on Sunday morning prior to the SEG and AAPGAnnual Meetings.Many members are in both societies andare on both committees.The greatest area for growth nowis to work with SPE/SPWLA or reservoir engineers.

We are active in keeping interpreters current andbroaden their vision through publications. RayThomasson has been generating ideas and solicitingpapers for the Geophysical Corner which appear in theAAPG Explorer. It has been a successful series since April1997. He has also teamed up with Lee Lawyer to gener-ate a Geologic Column that has appeared in THE LEADING

EDGE since January 1998.These columns, tutorial articleswith good illustrations and simple examples, are verypopular in our members. Randy Ray will be taking overas the primary contact for these publications. A newseries,“Pitfalls,” was added to THE LEADING EDGE after thesuccessful workshop “Pitfalls in Seismic Interpretation”in 1998. Steve Henry is the contact for this series. Anonline version was put into place just prior to the 1999SEG Annual Meeting, and a pamphlet was handed outduring the committee meeting. Currently a frameworkexists that needs to be filled with examples.

The IC also sponsors workshops at SEG Annual Meet-ings.We sponsored and cosponsored two workshops in1998: “Pitfalls in Seismic Interpretation” and “The Futureof 3-D Seismic Interpretation and Visualization.” We didnot have one in 1999. For the 2000 Annual Meeting in

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rsCalgary, Larry Lines has organized “Pitfalls and Solutionsin Seismic Interpretation” in which eight speakers willaddress interpretation problems that apply to explo-ration in Canada and many other places.

Those interested in joining the Interpretation Com-mittee should contact me ([email protected]).We wouldalso like to hear your suggestions.What would you liketo see? What would you like to help on?

MembershipHowell W. Pardue, Chairman

This has been a short year,due to the SEG’s early AugustMeeting. A full year’s work must be compressed into 10months. As I reported last year, the ongoing discussionconcerning cooperation of SEG, AAPG,and other earth-sci-ence related professional societies is still being pursued.

I was invited to attend the AAPG MembershipCommittee meeting again and was able to go to thatmeeting in New Orleans.The major topics of conversa-tion at that meeting were how to maintain or increasemembership and intersociety cooperation.The first joint-ly sponsored AAPG/SEG meeting will occur October 15-17 in Bali, Indonesia.

After speaking with SEG President-Elect Sally Zinke, Ihave agreed to continue as Chairman of the MembershipCommittee for another year. However, I am appointingRuss Opfer as Vice-Chairman.This will assure continuitywhen he becomes Chairman after the 2001 meeting inSan Antonio.

This has been another difficult year for our membersdue to continued mergers and acquisitions. My expecta-tions for a fourth quarter turnaround last year were verypremature. We still have not achieved any degree ofrecovery. Although these are not the best of times, ourmembership is projected to increase in 1999-2000.Because of the timing of this report, final June 2000 num-bers will not be available at publication time. However,the figures included already reflect an increase in mem-bership despite being only 11-month totals.

As you can observe from the following charts andgraphs, SEG is healthy and growing. U.S. membershipcontinues to decline but is more than offset by interna-tional growth.


Figure 2. Membership Percentage and Counts U.S. vs. Non-U.S.

Figure 4. Membership by Classification—2000

Figure 5. Membership by Classification 1978-2000

Figure 3. Membership Report: Fiscal Years 1998-1999 and 1999-2000 (July 1-June 30)

1998-1999 1999-2000Active Members 8749 8490Associate Members 6692 7066Student Members 1131 1161Corporate 300 177Total 16874 16894Membership as of June 30 15589 16874New Members Elected 2023 1695Reinstatements 292 424Deaths -45 -33Resignations -118 -181Dropped (nonpayment of dues) -867 -1788Total 16874 16894Net (Decrease) 1285 20

Figure 1. Total SEG members as of May 31, 2000/June 30, 1930-1999

9626

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Does not include Corporate Members.

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Mining and GeothermalAlan King, Chairman

Since the last committee report, the Mining andGeothermal Committee held a meeting in March in con-junction with the PDA (Prospectors and DevelopersAssociation) Meeting in Toronto.

At the Toronto meeting, Dick West was nominated toserve as its vice chairman for the 2000-2002 term. Dickwill be assisting with our major effort to bring thehardrock geophysical community together at the 2002SEG Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City.

Current members of the committee are:Alan King, Chairman . . . . . . . . . .([email protected])Ken Witherly,Vice-Chairman . . . . .([email protected])

Dick West, In-comingVice-Chairman . . . . . . . . . .([email protected])

Joe Inman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .([email protected])Colin Barnett . . . . . . . . . . .([email protected])Craig Beasley . . . . . . . . .([email protected])Jack Corbett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .([email protected])Terry Crebs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .([email protected])Jan Klein . . . . . . . . . . .([email protected])Peter Kowalczyk . .([email protected])Vic Labson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .([email protected])Bob Lo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .([email protected])Ian MacLeod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .([email protected])Frank Morrison .([email protected])Jim Taranik . . . . . . . . . . . .([email protected])Jeff Wynn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .([email protected])Ken Zonge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .([email protected])Zbynck Dvorak . . . . . . . .([email protected])Any SEG member interested in mining and geother-

mal geophysics and seeking to be actively involved in thecommittee is encouraged to contact Alan King or KenWitherly.

Activities of the Committee over the last year include:• Planning for SEG 2000 Calgary Annual

Meeting. In keeping with recent tradition, theMining and Geothermal Committee is continuing tofocus its efforts on every other SEG Annual Meeting.

This policy was initiated very successfully atDenver in 1996, and continued for New Orleans in1998, and Calgary in 2000.

For the last year, much of the committee’s effortshave been directed to organizing a strong hardrockgeophysical presence at Calgary 2000. The resultslook promising with three special mining and geot-hermal sessions, two workshops, and two continu-ing education courses.

Calgary is in an area of world-class mining opera-tions—the Alberta oil sand and coal operations, theSaskatchewan uranium deposits, the northernAlberta and Northwest Territories diamond plug,and the Western Cordilleran hardrock mining oper-

ations.As such, it is an ideal venue for what promisesto be one of the premier hardrock geophysicalevents of 2000.

Ken Witherly has done an excellent job coordi-nating this event.

• List Server. The goal of this list server is to providecontacts among the scattered members of thehardrock geophysical community. It is up and run-ning after a slow start and is being used more andmore as the forum for informal, up-to-the-minuteexchanges in hardrock geophysics. Due to therecent changes in our business, this list server isproving to be a valuable tool in the best sense of thewired world. It’s what’s happening now!

To subscribe, e-mail [email protected] with the following instruction in the body ofyour message: subscribe segmin.

• Web Page. Plans are still under way to produce aMining and Geothermal Web page hosted by SEG.Discussions have been held with SEG regardingadvertising on this yet-to-be-constructed page.Hopefully we will make some progress this year.Theformat is not yet finalized, but we hope to have hotlinks to suppliers, bulletin boards, discussion areas,etc. Contact Alan King with suggestions.

• Future Meetings. The next major technical meet-ing for the Mining and Geothermal Committee willbe in Salt Lake City in 2002.There will be commit-tee meetings between now and then to carry on ourregular business and to prepare for Salt Lake City.Please contact any committee member if you wouldlike to be more involved.

Committee on NominationsBrian Russell, Chairman

The Committee on Nominations consists of the SEG’smost recent three past presidents plus four ActiveMembers each representing an SEG Section or AssociatedSociety. The immediate past president serves as chair-man. Each year two of the four Sections/AssociatedSocieties representatives are replaced through a drawingconducted by the Tellers Committee. This year’s mem-bers included past presidents Brian Russell (chairman),Rutt Bridges and Fred Hilterman, plus Sections/Asso-ciated Society representatives Bradley A. Birkelo and C.Riley Hanger, and representatives from the SociedadVenezolana de Ingenieros Geofísicos and the Chamber ofGeophysical Engineers of Turkey.

Suggestions for candidates come from a variety ofsources, ranging from members of the nominations com-mittee to past and present members who have beenactive in various SEG activities. Those elected to the2000-2001 SEG Executive Committee will have theopportunity to work with Sally Zinke, who will move upfrom President-Elect to President following this year’s


Annual Meeting. Nominees submitted for SEG offices bythe Committee on Nominations were as follows:

President-Elect: Walter S. LynnDon W. Steeples

First Vice-President: Allen J. BertagnePhilip S. Schultz

Second Vice-President: A. Peter AnnanAlan R. King

Vice-President: Yoram ShohamSudarshan Singh

Secretary-Treasurer: Stephen J. HillRichard W.Verm

No candidates were nominated by petition for thiselection cycle. I would like to thank my fellow commit-tee members for the long hours and thoughtful consid-eration they put into the process of selecting and recruit-ing this outstanding slate of candidates.

Online Governing BoardJoe Dellinger, Chairman

This was a year for SEG to build up its software infra-structure.Although not yet particularly obvious from theoutside, these improvements are already making newefficiencies possible for the SEG staff. Documents arebeing replaced by databases so that updates and addi-tions (for example, a change of address, authors’ biogra-phy information for an Expanded Abstract,or a new com-mittee roster) now need be entered once instead of mul-tiple times.These databases are then accessible by a newgeneration of Web-server software that can constructWeb pages “on the fly.’’ More and more SEG Web pageswill thus automatically keep themselves current. It is alsonow possible to include varying features on the Webpages, such as the rotating advertisements on the homepage navigation bar.

A lot of work this last year has gone into “populating’’these new databases, much of it by performing one-timeconversions of old proprietary formats to modernportable standards. The publications index is one suchproject; another is the GEOROM product (a CD-ROMarchive of SEG’s journals), which is being converted to aWeb-friendly format. Soon, it will be possible for SEG tooffer a complete searchable archive of all past issues ofTHE LEADING EDGE and GEOPHYSICS online, with full textand page images available for downloading. This willenable SEG to offer “online memberships’’ as a viablealternative to current membership. (If everything goesaccording to plan, SEG members will soon be able toforego receiving the traditional printed copies ofGEOPHYSICS in exchange for unlimited free access to theelectronic archives.)

Other longer-term projects are also in the works. SEG

has already successfully transitioned to online submis-sion and review of SEG Expanded Abstracts. In coopera-tion with other societies, SEG is now working on a muchmore complicated problem of online submission, review,and manuscript tracking for TLE and GEOPHYSICS. (Anonline review/manuscript tracking module for TLE hasjust become available. GEOPHYSICS will take longer:Vendors of currently available online review softwarehave been surprised and dismayed by some of our ques-tions, such as “Does your software support reviews con-taining equations?’’)

Meanwhile, the number of documents online contin-ues to grow.Placing them online often makes them moreuseful than before (for example, the online Buyer’s Guidecan contain links to companies listed). It also makesthem easily available. (SEG staff can now refer callers ask-ing for copies of SEG digital standards to the Web page.)A new e-mail server has made it possible for targetednotices to be sent out (for example, announcements ofcontinuing education courses) that formerly would havegone by regular mail at greater expense and with slowerdelivery. Some section newsletters are now also trans-mitted electronically, instead of through the mail. Overthe last year the SEG Web server has reached the “millionaccesses per month’’ milestone and, partially as a result,Web advertising revenue has significantly increased,more than doubling from fiscal year 1999 to 2000. It isexpected to nearly triple again by fiscal year 2001.

We expect that SEG will continue “riding the digitalwave’’ into a successful future, but the process must bemanaged carefully to safeguard the Society’s finances,intellectual property, and assets. Our committee invitesinterested members to help us meet this challenge!

PublicationsLarry Lines, Chairman

The Publications Committee works with the Publica-tions Department staff to produce all Special Publica-tions. Our objective is to provide exploration geophysi-cists with the technical geophysical information theyrequire in their jobs or studies.This report summarizesthose books recently published, those to be published inthe near future, and gives a financial summary of rev-enues from publications.

Books published in fiscal year 2000 include:• Covariance Analysis for Seismic Signal Processing,

edited by R. Lynn Kirlin and William J. Done• Depth Imaging of Foothills Seismic Data, edited by

Laurence R. Lines, Donald C. Lawton, and Samuel H.Gray (CSEG publication sold on consignment bySEG)

• Interpretation of Three-Dimensional Seismic Data,Fifth Edition, by Alistair Brown

• Processing Near-Surface Seismic-Reflection Data:APrimer, by Gregory S. Baker


• Seismic and Acoustic Velocities in Reservoir Rocks,Volume 3: Recent Developments, edited by ZhijingWang and Amos Nur

• Static Corrections for Seismic Reflection Surveys,by Mike Cox

• The Seismic Velocity Model as an InterpretationAsset, by Phil Schultz

• Three-Dimensional Electromagnetics, edited byMichael Oristaglio and Brian Spies

Books expected to be published before the endof calendar year 2000 include:• Advances in Anisotropy—Selected Theory, Model-

ing, and Case Studies, edited by Julie A. Hood• Applied Seismic Anisotropy and Field Studies, edit-

ed by Colin MacBeth and Heloise Lynn• Geophysical Signal Analysis, by Enders A. Robinson

and Sven Treitel (reprint of book formerly producedby another publisher)

• Geophysics in the Affairs of Mankind, by L.C. (Lee)Lawyer, Charles C. Bates, and Robert B. Rice

• Planning Land 3-D Seismic Surveys, by AndreasCordsen, Mike Galbraith, and John Pierce

• Seismic Data Analysis—Processing, Inversion, andInterpretation of Seismic Data, by Oz Yilmaz

• Seismic Wave Propagation—Collected Works of J. E.White, by J. E.White, edited by Dan Ebrom

• 3-D Seismic Exploration, by Robert J.Graebner,BobA. Hardage, and William A. Schneider

Royalty Payment ScheduleAt the March 3-4, 2000 meeting, the Executive

Committee approved a new royalty payment schedulefor authors (books with four or fewer authors are eligi-ble).The schedule is not retroactive to existing books:

Royalty % Number of Sales8 Up to 60012 601 to 100014 1001 to 200016 2001 to 300017 3001 to 400018 4001 to 500019 5001 to 600020 6001 and subsequent sales

Publications Manager Ted Bakamjian reports that SEGreference publications revenue was $557 786 throughthe first three-quarters of fiscal year 2000.Although thiswas under budget, reference publications have realized aprofit of $126 000. SEG has more than 100 books andstandards in print, and its publications portfolio alsoincludes several videotapes, slide sets, computer pro-grams, and CD-ROM sets.

The Publications Committee is a group of dedicatedindividuals who generously donate their time. Thesecommittee members, along with editors, book authors,and the SEG Publications staff allow the SEG publicationprocess to work efficiently. Series Editors are:

• Cynthia Menant Berlier, Slide Sets• Michael R. Cooper, Investigations in Geophysics

• Dan Ebrom, Geophysics Reprints• David V. Fitterman, Geophysical Monographs• Stephen J. Hill, Geophysical Developments• Gene Scherrer, Geophysical References• Ilya Tsvankin,Translations Committee Chairman• Roger Young, Continuing Education Course Notes

ResearchLeon Thomsen, Chairman

The Research Committee is one of the largest andmost active of the standing committees; we currentlyhave 93 members,and at least as many opinions on everyissue. Our general purpose is to foster research in explo-ration geophysics, and we do this in a variety of ways.Chief among these is the organization of special sessionsat the Annual Meeting, Research Workshops followingthe convention, and week-long Summer ResearchWorkshops in more bucolic settings. We accomplishthese goals via active e-mail exchanges, a brief progressmeeting during each Annual Meeting, and in two intensedays each winter (this year in San Ramon).We also meetjointly with the EAGERC at the venue of the EAGEAnnual Convention, this year in Glasgow.

Each of the following events required significantefforts from its own organizing committee; details aregiven on our Web site, http://www.seg.org/research1999 Convention Special Sessions

• “Recent Advances and the Road Ahead,” organizedby Laurent Meister

• “E&P Technology Development in Times ofUncertain and Soft Economy,” organized by YoramShoham

1999 Post Convention Workshops• “Recent Advances in Logging Methods,” organized

by Kurt-Martin Strack and H. H.Yuan• “The Next SEG/EAGE Seismic Model,” organized by

Leon Thomsen and Leigh House• “Dynamic Reservoir Characterization and Produc-

tion Optimization with Geoscience Constraints,”organized by Ali Tura and Fred Aminzadeh

• “Is True Amplitude Processing and Imaging Possiblein 3-D?” organized by Simon Spitz, Fabio Rocca, andGraham Winbow

• “Fracture Characterization and Imaging,” organizedby Mike Schoenberg, Ilya Tsvankin, and Colin Sayers

2000 Summer Research Workshop• “Recent Advances in Shear Wave Technology for

Reservoir Characterization:A New Beginning,” jointlysponsored by EAGERC, organized by Colin MacBeth,Reinaldo Michelena, Maria Donati, Jim Geiser, NickMoldoveanu, and Simon Spitz, to be held in Boise,Idaho, October 1-6. See the workshop Web site at:http://www.seg.org/meetings/srwboise2000

Looking ahead to the upcoming Annual Meeting (detailson the SEGRC Web site): http://www.seg.org/research


2000 Convention Special Sessions• “Recent Advances and the Road Ahead,” organized

by Yoram Shoham and Kurt-Martin Strack, will con-centrate on niche geophysical technologies.

2000 Convention Workshops• “Using Converted Waves for Lithology and Fluid

Discrimination and Interpretation,” organized byRon Ward, Mark Meadows, and Mrinal Sengupta

• “Grains,Pores, and Fluids:Beyond Gassmann,”organ-ized by Randy McKnight, Jim Berryman, and NaderDutta

• “Instrumented Oilfields: The Next Step,” organizedby Guillaume Cambois, Ali Tura, and Kurt-MartinStrack

• “Advances in Electromagnetic Methods for Petro-leum Applications,” organized by Len Srnka, Kurt-Martin Strack, Andrea Zerilli, Geoffrey Dorn, andMike Schoenberg

• “Definition of Attributes for Rock PhysicsParameters,” organized by Larry Myer and FredAminzadeh

• “Quantitative Time-lapse Geophysics: ObtainingDynamic Reservoir Parameters,” organized by IanJack and Colin MacBeth

Looking still further ahead:2001 Summer Research Workshops

• “Joint Geophysical and Petrophysical Applicationsfor Enhanced Reservoir Understanding,” jointlysponsored by EAGERC and organized by LaurenceNicoletis, Bjo/rn Ursin, Mike Schoenberg, MihaiPopovici, and Kurt-Martin Strack, to be held inEurope in early summer 2001.

• “Advances in Geophysical, Medical, and SpaceImaging,” David Lumley, Geoffrey Dorn, Bob Stolt,Stewart Levin, Maarten de Hoop, and Rob Clayton

As you can see from these activities, research in explo-ration geophysics is alive and well. In fact, we see ahealthy level of ongoing research as the indispensablekey to the survival of our profession throughout the nextmillennium.

ReviewsPaul Docherty, Chairman

The goal of the Reviews Committee is to providetimely and critical reviews of geophysical and explo-ration-related publications to assist members in selectingstate-of-the-art literature to enhance their professionalskills. Reviews appear monthly in THE LEADING EDGE.During the reporting period (August 1999-May 2000), 26books were reviewed by 13 reviewers from five differentcountries.

The practice of soliciting reviews electronically con-tinues with 91 members currently receiving a monthlynotice of recent publications. Reviewers request booksby e-mail and are encouraged to submit their reviews by

e-mail. Interested members are invited to participate bycontacting [email protected].

The committee extends its thanks to MerrilySanzalone (SEG Projects Coordinator, PublicationsDepartment) for smoothly handling communicationswith publishers, and to Fairfield Industries for support indelivering books to reviewers worldwide.

SEG Student Sections/Academic Liaison CommitteeKay Dautenhahn Wyatt, Chairman

Once again, this has been a busy year for the SS/ALCommittee. Before reviewing the specific activities ofthe Committee, I would like to share some of thechanges that we have seen this year. On a sad note, welost Marge Gerhart to cancer. Marge served SEG for 27years in many capacities, including long-time support ofthe SS/AL committee and associated student activities.We will miss her dedication and attention to detail, butespecially her kindness and gracious manner in workingwith all SEG members.

Marge’s death resulted in a reevaluation of SEGBusiness Office resources necessary to adequately sup-port student activities. The vision and commitment ofthis year’s SEG Executive Committee, under the leader-ship of Bill Barkhouse, resulted in the appointment ofPatricia (Trish) Wacker as our full-time SEG StudentAffairs Coordinator. We are so happy to have Trish onboard, and her energy and enthusiasm are an inspirationto us all.

In today’s climate, and with the consolidation of manycompanies, geophysicists are busier than ever in theirjobs.The amount of time that SEG members have to vol-unteer for SEG activities seems to be going down. Inorder to maintain the level of activity within the SS/ALCommittee, we have reorganized into “teams” and haveattempted to recruit volunteers and team leaders foreach activity. In this way, we hope to break down activi-ties into more reasonable sized tasks, spread this over alarger number of volunteers, and not overwhelm any sin-gle individual. I am pleased that most teams now haveleaders who are actively recruiting volunteers to assistthem.

Our activities for this year can be grouped accordingto two general goals:

•Demonstrate SEG’s commitment to our studentmembership by revitalizing existing programs andby offering new and innovative activities,

•Develop geophysics education materials for highschool juniors and seniors and for elementaryschool grades 4 and 5.

In meeting the first goal, renewed contacts have beenmade with all student sections.Currently, SEG has 85 stu-dent sections worldwide (45 outside the United States)


advantage of the relational structure of the ADS format tosimplify their own internal structure and allow multipleversions of the data sets to exist within a single metafile.This last feature allows future users of the Trace Edit for-mat to selectively reapply field trace edits without hav-ing to reevaluate the complete seismic data volume.Example “C” source code to read an ADS data set is pro-vided as part of the format. ADS was a joint effortbetween the SEG and UKOOA. UKOOA have acceptedthe ADS format standard.

SEG-Y Rev. 1The original SEG Y Data Exchange Format (revision 0)

was published in 1975. It has achieved widespread usagewithin the geophysical industry. This widespread usagehas also brought about many proprietary variations.Since the initial publication of SEG Y rev 0, the nature ofseismic data acquisition, processing, and seismic hard-ware has changed significantly. The introduction of 3-Dacquisition techniques and high speed, high capacityrecording media dictate that changes be made to the SEGY rev 0 format.The changes are principally addressed atstandardizing the location of header information neededfor current processing practices, defining a SEG Y dataset as a byte stream format, and adding format structureto accommodate high capacity storage media.A very sig-nificant amount of work has been done by the PESGBData Management Group. Their draft 5 document hasbeen incorporated into a draft SEG-Y rev 1 format.Thisdraft standard still requires some additional work on newdata stanzas and a larger review within the geophysicalcommunity.

Technical Standards Web PageThe Technical Standards Web page at the SEG’s Web

site has been expanded to include MS Word and PDF ver-sions of all of the existing SEG technical standards.Additionally UKOOA has granted permission to makesome of its seismically related standards available at nocharge and to allow links from the SEG Web site.

Grid Exchange FormatGXF (Grid eXchange File) is a standard ASCII file for-

mat for exchanging gridded data among different soft-ware systems. Software that supports the GXF standardwill be able to import properly formatted GXF files andexport grids in GXF format. GXF Revision 1 was draftedby Ian MacLeod at the request of the CanadianExploration Geophysical Society (KEGS) of Toronto. Itfound significant usage in the mining and environmentsectors. Revision 2 was undertaken in conjunction withthe Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists(ASEG) who adopted it as their standard. The mainadvance of Revision 2 over Revision 1 was the additionof data compression through the use of base-90 numbersand simple repeat value compression.These extensionsmade GXF more practical for exchanging large griddeddata sets.GXF Revision 2 was adopted by the Gravity and

Magnetics Committee of the Society of ExplorationGeophysicists (SEG) in November 1997, with the urgingthat the standard be further extended to encompass theexchange of map projection information.

TellersArthur C. Falkler, Chairman

This report covers the term July 1, 1999 to May 31,2000.

Southwestern Computing Services, Inc. in Tulsa wasretained for tabulation of the 1999-2000 SEG Officerelection ballots. There were no District Representativeposts to fill this year.

Of the 7943 ballots mailed, 2191 valid ballots werereceived through July 31, 1999.The ballots were openedunder my supervision as Chairman of the Tellers Com-mittee.The additional Tellers Committee members pres-ent were Stephen Hill and Richard Banks. The ballotswere delivered to Southwestern Computing, where thevotes were entered, verified, tabulated, and returned tothe SEG Business Office.

The SEG Tellers Committee verified the SouthwesternComputing Service data. The data was checked on 3batches of 50 each. No data errors were found in thosesamples.The program was verified by counting the votesfor all candidates.

The 2000-2001 SEG Officers and District Representa-tive ballots were mailed to the voting membership byApril 10, 2000.

THE LEADING EDGE

Editorial BoardGuillaume Cambois, Chairman

Y2K has been a difficult year revenue wise for THE

LEADING EDGE. Although the price of oil and gas havereached comfortable levels, manufacturers and servicecompanies, our traditional advertisers, have been slowerto recover.As a consequence, our revenue fell well shortof the budget. On the other hand, the change of printingcompany that occurred last year has translated into sig-nificant cost savings. Consequently, THE LEADING EDGE

should break even for the year, with a bright outlook for2001. Remember, though, that TLE’s goal is not to makehefty profits, but to remain the best asset of your SEGmembership. Hence, increased revenue will mean morepages and therefore more content.

The current content of TLE is the result of a gradualevolution over the past few years, under the leadershipof previous Chairman Allen Bertagne. Every issue nowcontains a special section and a series of regular features.The special sections offer a snapshot of a given technol-


ogy or of the current understanding of a basin and areoften considered as a reference for the chosen topic.Theregular features have become extremely popular amongour readers and ensure that all interests are representedevery month. I take this opportunity to thank all the spe-cial editors and the column coordinators for their dedi-cated contribution to the success of our journal. Follow-ing Alistair Brown’s suggestion that we should renewwith human-interest articles, Dolores Proubasta hasspearheaded a “mini-profile” series (for now a semi-regu-lar column) that features interviews of prominentgeophysicists.

TLE is getting increased recognition for its technicalcontent.Last year, the SEG Executive Committee decidedto create a Best Paper in TLE Award. For 1999, the Boardrecommended to the Award Committee the nominationof Xianhuai Zhu, Suat Altan, and Jianchao Li for “RecentAdvances in Multicomponent Processing.” Congratula-tions to these authors for receiving the first ever BestPaper in TLE Award. The board has also decided on aprocess for selecting the nominee. Every single paperpublished in TLE is eligible. To be considered, a papermust be recommended by an SEG member,and we there-fore encourage all our readers to submit their recom-mendations to Dean Clark.The board then chooses thebest paper as the one that ranks highest for clarity, con-ciseness, originality, applicability, and technical or educa-tional impact.

You will notice that “timeliness” has been excludedfrom these criteria.We just assume that the articles pub-lished in TLE are as timely as they can get,because of theextremely short turn-around time between submissionand publication. This is a direct consequence of digitalpublication, combined of course with our “loose filter”editorial policy. This result was not achieved withoutgrowing pains though. TLE’s highly dedicated and moti-vated staff have diligently changed and improved theirworking practices to meet these new challenges.We cannow offer flawless issues with the timeliest possible con-tent. If this is not timely enough for you, we are also con-sidering the possibility of including some articles on theSEG Web site. This could allow for “interactive” paperswith sound and movies. More to come about this nextyear.

Finally, 2000 was Rosemary Knight’s last year as aboard member. Her contribution to TLE has been out-standing and, on behalf of past and present board mem-bers, I wish to congratulate her for a job well done.

TranslationsIlya Tsvankin, Chairman

The Translations Committee met in Houston onNovember 1, 1999, to discuss several foreign-languagebooks for possible translation and publication by SEG.The committee decided that none of those books is

acceptable in their present form, although some mightbe published after revision. Books currently being con-sidered by the committee include: Vertical SeismicProfiling: Experiments and Results by the late Russiangeophysicist E. I. Galperin, and Magnetotelluric Fields in3-D Geoelectrical Models by Vjacheslav Spichak.Anotherproposed book, The Dynamic Fluid Method by VladimirPisetski, is in preparation and will be reviewed by thecommittee as it becomes available.

Magnetotellurics in the Context of Theory of Ill-posed Problems (translation from Russian), by M. N.Berdichevsky and V. I. Dmitriev, recommended by thecommittee to SEG several years ago, has been preparedfor publication.H.Dürschner’s paper titled Three-dimen-sional Seismics in the Exploration for HydrocarbonDeposits has been translated from German and will beincluded in the reprint series on 3-D seismic.

Tables of contents of the following foreign journalsare presently published in GEOPHYSICS on a regular basis.

ChinaOil Geophysical ProspectingJournal of the University of Petroleum

HungaryGeophysical Transactions of the Eotvos LorandGeophysical Institute

IndiaJournal of Geophysics (formerly Journal of Associationof Exploration Geophysicists)

JapanButsuri-Tansa (Geophysical Exploration) of the SEGJapan

RussiaGeology and Geophysics, Russian Academy ofSciences, Siberian Branch

UkraineGeophysical Journal, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences

Tables of contents of other journals and one-timereports of possible interest to the readership ofGEOPHYSICS are published as they become available.

Certification for Petroleum GeophysicistsEric von Lunen, Chairman

In recent years numerous requests for geology certifi-cation have been received by AAPG’s Division ofProfessional Affairs (DPA). But the applicants and refer-ences underscored the individual’s geophysical abilities.Rather than continue a policy that did not recognizepetroleum geophysicists and their contributions toindustry, the AAPG-DPA committee undertook a strategicinitiative. In 1999, certification for petroleum geophysi-cists was included within the AAPG-DPA program. Thecertification was directed at the large group of dualAAPG/SEG members, in particular interpreters.

After a discussion with the SEG President in Decem-ber 1999, an ad hoc committee was formed to supportthe AAPG-DPA initiatives and examine the rationale ofpotential membership “shared”with AAPG.Within AAPG,nearly 17% of the active members are certified petrole-um geologists. Consequently, we would initially estimatethat 5-8%, or nearly 700 Active SEG members may ulti-mately become certified petroleum geophysicists.AAPGcertification is based on graduation from a recognizedinstitution with a geoscience degree, eight years of rele-vant industry experience, and high professional careerstandards.

Since January 2000, more than 45 applications forpetroleum geophysicist certification have been receivedat the DPA-AAPG office. At present, nine have beenreviewed and approved by the DPA certification com-mittee. Several joint publication announcements in pro-fessional periodicals have heightened awareness. Wehave suggested an SEG member, recently certified as apetroleum geophysicist, attend the SEG Annual Meetingand set up an information booth at the AAPG exhibit.Further, we continue to publicly announce this opportu-nity at SEG events and meetings of local sections. Finally,we have identified approximately 150 AAPG/SEG mem-bers who have applied for certification in recent yearsand are directing a letter to these individuals suggestingthey renew their previous applications.

Discussions with SEG members at recent eventsemphasized the need to consider the broader issue ofcertification standards within the SEG community. TheDPA-AAPG certification applies to dual society members,petroleum geophysicists and geologists, and primarilyinterpreters.The major subdisciplines of petroleum data

acquisition and processing may in the future be poorlyrepresented. The mining and near-surface geophysicalengineering professions are not recognized. Many near-surface and mining geophysicists point out their peerssuch as civil engineers, mining engineers, geologists, andhydrogeologists often have state regulatory or profes-sional organization certification credentials. Consequent-ly, it would be realistic and prudent to consider assem-bling an analog to DPA-AAPG within SEG. This can beaccomplished by appointing two or three SEG membersto examine the functions and organizational structure ofthe DPA. An analog organization within SEG wouldaddress professional standards and accomplishments of our more diverse career paths and specialties ingeophysics.

The “Vision of the Need for Geophysicist Certifi-cation” is perhaps reflected in the current transition todynamic career paths with multiple employers and asconsultants. The future geophysicist’s career will haveseveral intermediate employment tenures of five to tenyears; with up to four major subdiscipline career shiftsemphasizing different aspects of geophysics and its tech-nology application, in a 30– to 40–year career cycle.Records informally show more than 40% of our membersare in petroleum-related careers, with significant mem-bership fractions involved in data acquisition and pro-cessing. Another common petroleum industrial trend iscontinued contraction of U.S. operations, shifting ourmembership to nearly 45% international (up almost 15%in the last decade).This means fewer SEG members willwork for major petroleum and/or service companies forlengthy periods. Hence, the question quickly focuses on“how do we recognize professional achievement, meas-ure milestones, and describe credible standards amonggeophysicists?” Within AAPG, certified petroleum geolo-gists account for 17% of the eligible membership, 27%are employed by petroleum companies, 53% listed asconsultants and independents, and 20% as educators,government, etc. Clearly smaller employers and consult-ants value the certification process. Further, subcommit-tees within the DPA-AAPG provide position papers onindustry-related topics on professional trends, realisticindustry standards, and technical issues. Most profession-al societies shift toward certification and professionalrecognition of career standards and milestones, self-improvement through continuing education, advancedgraduate degree emphasis, and ultimately regulatory con-trol. Thus SEG should undertake a carefully chosencareer certification or milestone recognition path for itsmembers.

Reports of the Ad Hoc Committee Chairmen

41


Enhancement of IntersocietyRelationsJeffrey D. Johnson, Chairman

Relations and cooperation between SEG and its majorsister societies—EAGE, AAPG and to a lesser extentSPE—have improved in the last several years. Diversecooperative initiatives, activities, and actions—mostlybetween various pairs of societies—are occurring.Theseare mostly between SEG and AAPG and SEG and EAGEand have been initiated through Presidential Summits,Executive Director interaction, and some committeeefforts. Nevertheless, the pace of implementation, theextent of SPE collaboration, and the involvement of theSEG membership and Committees could arguably beimproved. SEG President Bill Barkhouse sanctioned thisad hoc committee in March to provide additional ideasand actions that improve or enhance intersociety rela-tions and provide some direct ownership of selected cur-rent initiatives. The progress of this committee will bereviewed at the Executive Meeting in August where adecision to continue or terminate the Committee will bemade.Committee Membership:

Jeff Johnson NExT, LLCYoram Shoham ShellSimon Spitz CGGJoel Watkins Texas A&M UniversityBob Tatham University of TexasDavid Johnston ExxonMobil

Committee members have discussed planned effortsthrough e-mail and a meeting between Johnson,Shoham,Spitz, and Tatham at the EAGE Convention in Glasgow onMay 30.Committee Objectives:

Recommend actions and processes that:• Improve linkage of SEG members and appropriate

committees with members/committees or forumsin EAGE, AAAG, and SPE.

• Support industry’s need for integration of geo-physics with geologic and engineering disciplinesand technologies.

• Specifically enhance synergies with SPE.Any recommendations or actions must increase bene-

fits to SEG members, lower costs for SEG, increase SEGrevenue, support industry business trends,enhance tech-nology development or best practice sharing, advocatevalue of geophysics, or support long range vision of SEG.At least one member of the Committee believes ourgroup should have a bolder long-term vision of support-ing future creation of a single “subsurface” society.Proposed Tasks and Actions:

• Implement a session at each SEG Annual Meetingjointly sponsored by the SEG, SPE, and AAPG inwhich invited papers document case histories/best

practices of effective multidiscipline integration insubsurface business projects.

• This concept, which is quite different than past“Best of AAPG sessions,” was approved by the SEGExecutive Committee a couple of years ago. BobHardage, Technical Program Chairman for the SanAntonio meeting,has reserved a slot for this session,and letters have been sent soliciting participationby SEG and AAPG.

• Evaluate synergies between appropriate SEG com-mittees (e.g. Interpretation, Research, Developmentand Production) and similar committees/forums inAAPG, EAGE, and SPE in terms of potential for actu-al merged committees.Bob Tatham and Joel Watkins will begin this effort.

• Investigate where SEG could work with the othersocieties to offer continuing education in multidis-cipline integration or cross discipline topics.Jeff Johnson will discuss with society continuingeducation leadership.

• Provide direct linkage to SPE officials who are con-sidering recommendations from its task group onsociety relations for inclusion in their long-rangeplan. Jeff Johnson and Simon Spitz served on thisSPE task group.

• Develop a position paper on society relationshipsthat presents an intersociety vision for 2010.

Over the last 15 years many efforts have been madeby leaders and committees to increase intersociety col-laboration between the major exploration and produc-tion societies. Progress, particularly in jointly sponsoredregional or topical conferences, certainly has occurred.Too often, however, initiatives have depended on specif-ic individuals and have lacked long-term continuity.ThisCommittee hopes to help build some longer-term own-ership in the SEG for appropriate cooperation andactions. We also hope that our efforts might lead to ajointly sanctioned, multisociety cooperation committeein the near future.

AGI Member Society CouncilCraig J. Beasley, Representative

The American Geological Institute (AGI) is made up of34 member geoscience societies.These societies includeacademic, industrial, and governmental bodies. One ofthe primary goals of AGI is to communicate between thevarious earth sciences, and thus establish a commonvoice on educational, environmental, and governmentalissues.

AGI serves the member societies in a number of tan-gible ways. News, trends, and general information con-cerning the geosciences are disseminated through AGI’sprimary publication, Geotimes. Particular attention ispaid to governmental issues and funding for the geo-sciences. Realizing that public opinion plays a significantrole in policy decisions, AGI has focused on promotingEarth Science Week to raise public awareness of issuesthat relate to earth science. This year’s Earth ScienceWeek, October 8-14, will include field trips, classroomvisits, seminars, special exhibits, and activities with scoutand youth groups. Information can be found atwww.earthsciweek.org.

AGI monitors the U.S. Congress and the various meet-ings, hearings, and reports concerning the geosciencesand advises the member societies of salient activities.It also provides geoscience information to policy makersthrough programs such as a Congressional Science Fel-lowship.

AGI is continuing its commitment to educationthrough the Environmental Awareness Series (EAS)which covers such topics as soils, water, metals and min-ing,petroleum and the environment,global change,citiesand geology.Another thrust of AGI is to increase aware-ness of national science awards among its member soci-eties, and thereby increase participation in these awardsby geoscientists.The AGI Web site at www.agiweb.orgis an excellent resource for the earth sciences.Training,educational information, links to home pages of membersocieties, governmental affairs links, and a wealth ofother information make this one of the most diverse anduseful Web sites related to geoscience. Please give it avisit.

API Central Committee for TelecommunicationsClifford Ray, Representative

The API Telecommunications Committee is a primaryconduit by which our industry’s perspective is transmit-ted to governmental agencies and legislative bodieswhich have regulatory or oversight authority in techni-cal areas, particularly communications, that impact ouroperations. I have only recently been appointed to thisposition and, thus,cannot submit a detailed report at thistime. Ben Thigpen, my predecessor as SEG’s representa-tive to the API Communications Committee, held thisposition for 23 years. I take this opportunity, on behalf ofall SEG members, to thank him for such dedicated serv-ice in a very important job, one that impacts virtually avery large percentage of our membership.

International Association of Geophysical Contractors (IAGC)Louis I. Schneider Jr., Representative

Edison Chouest OffshoreAs IAGC enters a new millennium, it is in the process

of reinventing itself to expand and enhance its value tothe worldwide membership and to the geophysicalindustry at large. A major component of the change isdirected to increasing the effectiveness of the associa-tion’s international chapters for North America, LatinAmerica, Europe,Africa, and Middle East (EAME), Far Eastregion, and Australia. Discussions are taking place to pos-sibly consolidate these chapters and link them togetherin a consistent and coherent manner to achieve the high-est level of synergy and to assure a more equalized struc-ture. A major development planned during 2000 is theestablishment of a China Chapter supported by an officestaff of two in Beijing.

Another major step is the consolidation of IAGC’s twoWeb sites (one in Houston and a second in London) witha focal point for the organization’s communications withthe global membership and with others with whom itcoordinates and cooperates. If you haven’t visited thenew, improved IAGC Web site, it can be reached atwww.iagc.org. Upgrades in the computer systems usedby IAGC’s two offices also will improve communicationsefforts.

Reports of the SEG Representatives

43


Several innovations are under way to build on theassociation’s image of quality, technology, professional-ism, and HSE excellence with its members, potentialmembers and others with whom IAGC works and com-municates, including SEG. Among these value-addingactivities is a series of special industry conferencesplanned during the last quarter of 2000 or in early 2001on such subjects as “Spec Data Issues in the NewMillennium,”“Improving U.S.Geophysical Permitting andthe Geophysical Industry’s Image,” “Capitalizing on theOpportunities to the Geophysical Industry, presented byE-Commerce,” “Enhancing the Geophysical Industry’sEnvironmental Stewardship,” “A Layman’s Guide toMulticomponent Seismic Systems,” and “New Initiativesin Geophysical Industry Safety Performance.”

To assure the strongest possible financial base in thefuture, IAGC is looking at several possible opportunitiesto partner and collaborate with other petroleum serviceand supply trade associations.

IAGC continues to provide industry standards for theindustry. The IAGC land and marine safety manuals areavailable in English, Spanish, and Russian.The IAGC U. S.A. Geophysical Contract Manual will shortly be supple-mented by a new millennium edition of the IAGCInternational Geophysical Contract Manual (available inJuly). The IAGC Guidelines for Geophysical Data-UseLicenses are proving to be a “best seller,” and animproved second edition of the IAGC EnvironmentalManual for Worldwide Geophysical Operations will beavailable by March 1, 2001.

IAGC’s operations are headed this year by Chairmanof the Board Steve Ludlow of Veritas DGC (2000-01),ViceChairman and Chairman-Elect Doug Elrod ofSchlumberger,President Charles F.Darden,Vice PresidentMike Covil, and a 14-member board of directors.

Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) Board of DirectorsJames D. Robertson, Representative

SEG is a sponsoring organization of the Offshore Tech-nology Conference. This relationship dates from 1968when SEG accepted an invitation to join AIME and sevenother engineering and scientific societies to establishOTC as an interdisciplinary meeting on technology relat-ed to offshore resources. As a sponsoring organization,SEG is entitled to appoint one of the 13 members of theOTC Board of Directors. I have just finished the secondyear of a four-year term as SEG’s representative to theBoard.

The 2000 Offshore Technology Conference was heldon May 1-4, 2000 at the Astrodome in Houston. Totalattendance was 43 785,slightly less than 44 749 who reg-istered for the 1999 OTC. Two hundred seventy-seventechnical papers were presented, and 2033 exhibitors

from 28 countries occupied 370 000 square feet ofexhibit space. Two OTC General Sessions covered thetopics of “The Changing Face of the Offshore Industry—A Global Perspective” and “The Changing Face of theOffshore Industry—A Regional Perspective.” The ActiveArena focused on technology, opportunities, and devel-opments in offshore West Africa. The 2000 OTCDistinguished Achievement Award for Individuals waspresented to William S. French for his outstanding lead-ership in developing and commercializing 3-D seismicdata processing technology to make 3-D seismologypractical,affordable,and essential in offshore explorationand development.The 2000 OTC Distinguished Achieve-ment Award for Companies, Organizations, and Institu-tions was presented to Kerr-McGee for the FPS NeptuneProject, which featured the first use of spar technologyfor offshore production processing and operations andwhich pioneered a new generation of floating systems.John Browne, Group Chief Executive of BP Amoco, deliv-ered the Keynote Address at the awards luncheon.

Exploration geophysics was exceptionally well repre-sented in the 2000 OTC Technical Program by SEG-spon-sored technical sessions on Reservoir Characterization,Multiple Attenuation, Geophysical Technology, and 4-DSeismology and by a topical luncheon speech deliveredby Steve Cassiani of ExxonMobil.The details are coveredin E. O. (Woody) Nestvold’s report following this report.I thank Woody (Chairman), Linda Zimmerman (Vice-Chairman), and the other members of the SEG/OTCTechnical Program Committee for their diligent efforts inassembling these excellent sessions. The hard work ofthese SEG members is directly responsible for the out-standing representation of exploration geophysics in theOTC Technical Program and for SEG’s success in pro-moting geophysics to all OTC attendees. I would partic-ularly like to thank Woody Nestvold,who is completing afive-year term as SEG’s OTC Technical ProgramRepresentative, for his multiple years of exceptional serv-ice to SEG and OTC, and to welcome Linda Zimmermanas SEG’s new OTC Technical Program Representative.

OTC Technical ProgramE. O. (Woody) Nestvold, Representative

The 2000 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC),held May 1-4 in Houston, continued the tradition ofexcellent technical programs sponsored by SEG.The pre-sentations included seven half-day technical sessionsplus a luncheon talk by Steve Cassiani of ExxonMobil.Myperception is that our Monday and Wednesday sessions,together with most of Tuesday’s Technology session, pro-vided a definitive, state-of-the-art overview of reservoircharacterization and 4-D seismic in the offshore industrytoday.Also, our Tuesday session on Multiple Attenuation


brought together the movers and shakers in that disci-pline and provided a forum for a collective statement onstatus and the road ahead. Finally, our topical luncheonspeaker, Steve Cassiani, tied it all together with an excel-lent overview and look ahead—well into the 21st centu-ry—The Importance of New Frontiers to Meet theGlobal Energy Demand in the 21st Century. Headdressed the projected increase in oil and gas con-sumption as an increasing part of the world’s total ener-gy demand and the ensuing potential demand/supplygap. He identified the new frontiers to meet the demandand thus help close the gap. He pointed out that compa-nies must focus on where and how to explore for andproduce hydrocarbons.Cassiani made it clear that a com-pany’s success depends on how it obtains maximumvalue from technology—and, most importantly, frompeople and their ability to understand and apply funda-mental scientific principles.

On May 1, an all-day Reservoir Characterization ses-sion,coordinated by Edward Meanley of Veritas DGC andcosponsored by AAPG and SPE, featured keynote speak-ers Neal Goins of ExxonMobil and Bill Bashore of RC-Squared. Goins emphasized integration of multidiscipli-nary technologies as key to effective reservoir descrip-tion. Bashore made the point that each discipline shouldwork on the same earth model to provide a frameworkfor effective integration of disciplines. Papers includedfluid and lithology interpretation using marine 4-C seis-mic, overpressure detection with VP /VS estimates, inver-sion of 4-D seismic and production data, application ofneural networks to 3-D seismic for fluid and lithologyvolumetrics, refining reservoir definition using depthmodeling, angle dependent seismic inversion, and geo-statistical seismic modeling.

May 2 featured two SEG sessions.Art Weglein of ARCO(now University of Houston) coordinated an all-dayMultiple Attenuation session. Keynote Speaker DoddDeCamp of ARCO (now with Phillips) described thechallenge of discovery, delineation, and development ofnew, high-quality, cost-effective resources in the face ofcomplex, costly, and challenging technology require-ments. He explained how removing multiples from seis-mic data to make them suitable for wave theoretic imag-ing can improve imaging in complex settings and meetthe challenge. Papers in this session covered both spe-cific technical responses and general strategic approach-es to the challenges. Authors used synthetic and fielddata examples.

A second Tuesday session focused on GeophysicalTechnology. This half-day session, coordinated by LindaZimmerman of ExxonMobil, spotlighted the applicationof diverse geophysical technologies to maximize explo-ration and production efficiency. Papers covered therange of geophysical technologies employed by the off-shore industry from gathering premium quality seismicdata and transmitting it back to the processing center asquickly and inexpensively as possible to the sophisticat-ed imaging techniques that are required to accurately

delineate a reservoir.The technical program finished on Wednesday with

another session cosponsored by AAPG and SPE, 4-DSeismic: Evaluating Reservoir Dynamics. Mike Burnamanof Virtual Geoscience Consultants coordinated this ses-sion. Keynote speakers were Karl Berteussen of PGS andRoger Anderson of Columbia University. Berteussen dis-cussed progress in 4-D acquisition technology and theimpact on field development risks and economics.Anderson took us “out of the box” to provide a glimpseof the challenge facing companies as they evaluate andmanage their total E & P portfolios of which reservoircharacterization and 4-D seismic play only a part. Sessionpapers emphasized the business relevance of this emerg-ing technology. They covered acquisition; processing;determination of resolution by stochastic simulation; cal-ibration of seismic, well, and field performance data;AVOeffects linked to fluid movement and pressure changes;and using 4-D seismic to optimize field simulation anddevelopment.

Committee members instrumental in organizing thissuperior program were Chairman E. O. (Woody)Nestvold, Vice-Chairman Linda Zimmerman, MikeBurnaman, Dan Ebrom, Warren Franz, Tom Fulton, JohnMacDonald, Ed Meanley, Norman Neidell, Jim Robinson,Ed Stoessel, and Art Weglein. On a personal note, OTC2000 completes my five-year term as SEG’s OTCTechnical Program Representative, and Chairman of theSEG/OTC Technical Program Committee. I appreciate thesupport of the SEG members who have helped make theOTC an important annual geophysics event.

For the 2001 OTC, Linda Zimmerman will becomeSEG’s OTC Technical Program Representative andCommittee Chairman;Dan Ebrom will be Vice-Chairman.The committee began work on the SEG-sponsored ses-sions for the 2001 OTC in February. Plans are now wellunder way for a technical program that promises to be asexciting as this year’s sessions.We look forward to anoth-er great event next year and hope for the continuing sup-port of the SEG membership.

Petroleum Technology Transfer Council (PTTC) Board of DirectorsGlenn R. Breed, Representative

The Petroleum Technology Transfer Council (PTTC)http://www.pttc.org continues to play an importantrole in the transfer of technology to independent oil andgas companies. Independent oil and gas companies inthe United States continue to drill 85% of all domesticwells, produce 65% of domestic natural gas and produce60% of the oil in the lower 48 states. The independentproducer continues to produce more and more of thedomestic United States oil and gas. Because technologyplays a major role in finding new reserves and increasing


the recovery factor in existing reservoirs, there needs tobe a means of sharing technology among the independ-ent producers. PTTC serves this function.

In a survey, the independent oil and gas producersranked their technology needs as follows: (1) producemore from existing wells by identifying behind-pipepotential or through advanced stimulation; (2) prioritizein-field development through geologic targeting; and (3)increase output through improved oil recovery methodsusing realistic screening criteria and benefiting fromsound operating practices, as documented in case studies.

PTTC offers more than 100 annual workshopsthroughout the country that are organized through its 10regional resource centers. PTTC’s workshops providesolutions to address specific regional concerns. Rangingfrom 3-D seismic imaging to horizontal drilling, theselow-cost workshops can help independent operatorsreduce finding costs, improve operations, and meet envi-ronmental regulations.

Please visit http://www.pttc.org/events.htm fordetails on workshops from 1995 forward.

PTTC is a valuable resource for the industry, and SEGhas a major role to play with PTTC and independent pro-ducers.This relationship will become even more impor-tant as multicomponent seismic data is used on a regularbasis.

PTTC has an extensive list of different technologies insummary form. Please visit http://www.pttc.org/techsum.htm for details.

PTTC links to many of the e-commerce sites athttp://www.pttc.org/ts/state.html

Society of Exploration GeophysicistsPO Box 702740 • Tulsa, OK 74170-2740 USA8801 South Yale • Tulsa, OK 74137-3575 USA1.918.497.5500 • Fax 1.918.497.5557Website: www.seg.org

2000 ANNUAL REPORT

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