geophysicsSpring 2002Colorado School of Mines

Greetings from theDepartment Head

geophysicsSpring 2002

Colorado School of Mines

3 Student Highlights

5 In the Field

8 Ticket to AnywhereSusan Perrell, GP Alum

10 Department Highlights

14 Sponsor News

15 Visiting Committee

16 Faculty News

18 GP Celebrations

Green CenterHome of the

Department of Geophysics– Photo by Derek Wilson

Department of GeophysicsColorado School of Mines

Golden, CO 80401-1887

www.geophysics.mines.edu

It is our pleasure to publish this Spring 2002newsletter to give you a glimpse of life in

the Department of Geophysics at ColoradoSchool of Mines.

Some activities have be-come traditions – count onthem and join us when youare able. One of these is theGeophysics reception lunch-eon immediately followingthe commencement cere-monies in May and Decem-ber. The entire Department –faculty, staff and students – gathers to honorgraduating students and returning alumni.

Another activity is the CSM luncheon atthe annual SEG meeting. This year the meet-ing is in Salt Lake City, and the luncheon willbe held on Tuesday, October 8.

Thanks for all the positive feedback on ourlast newsletter. We hope you like this oneequally well. In our next issue, we would liketo feature more alumni. So as you read thegreat article by Susan Perrell, think aboutwhat you might contribute. We need to hearfrom you!

Best regards,

3

STUDENT

HIGHLIGHTS

New Graduate Students Welcomed to CSM

CSM Geophysics graduate students are a culturally di-verse group, and for many their arrival on the CSM cam-pus is their first venture to Colorado. In order to familiarizethemselves with their new location and with each other,last fall’s new grad students traveled to Florissant, Col-orado, under the leadership of fellow student Kasper van

Left: The Homestead Property; Center: Kasper explains the early history; Right: Examining the relics.

Geophysics Students Help Build Frisbee TeamNot many people know much about

the sport invented thirty-two years agocalled Ultimate Frisbee. At the colle-giate level, Ultimate Frisbee hasgrown into an extremely competitiveclub sport. Over two hundred collegescompete in various tournaments eachspring culminating in sectional, re-gional, and nationalplayoffs that are gov-erned by an interna-tional body, the Ulti-mate Players Associ-ation.

Five years ago as afreshman majoring inGeophysics here atCSM, I was intro-duced to the sport ofUltimate Frisbee.Several friends and Iwent on to create theColorado School ofMines Ultimate Fris-bee Team, now called“Entropy.”

The CSM Ultimate Frisbee team hascontinued to grow from rather lacklus-ter beginnings that included a first-year showing at sectionals in whichCSM did not win a single game, to the2001 season, in which Entropy tookfourth place in the Southwest regionand ended the season ranked 34th in

the nation.Four geophysics students (Jon

Woolley, Don Keighley, Mike Rumon,and John Jackson) are playing for En-tropy this season, and have helped theteam to its best season start yet. At this

writing, we are cur-rently ranked 18th inthe nation and hope tocompete at nationalsin May.

I am now a geo-physics graduate stu-dent and I am proud ofthe team at Mines. Forsuch a small school tocompete at this level isquite an accomplish-ment. Colleges with3,000 students com-pete directly with col-leges of 30,000+ stu-

dents. Wish us luck with the

rest of our season!

– Jonathan Woolley

Entropy: CSM Ultimate Frisbee Team. GP students Jon Woolley (1strow, far left), John Jackson (2nd row, 2nd from left), Don Keighley(2nd row, far right), and Mike Rumon (back row, 4th from left).

Wijk. While on retreat, they stayed at “The Nature Place”which provided good hiking paths, wildlife and great viewsof famous Pike’s Peak. They even received a lesson in ear-ly American history by visiting an original homestead onthe property. Everyone agreed that this was a great intro-duction to their CSM tenure.

4

STUDENT

HIGHLIGHTS

— our own Olympics —Evergreen Lake is

the site for theDepartment’s annualice skating party. Thisyear over 100 peopletested the ice andjoined the fun.

The skating was fol-lowed by hot choco-late and a fantasticmeal at the nearbyhome of ProfessorKen Larner and hiswife Nancy, givingeveryone a chance tonurse their bruises.

Hadi–forgot the skates;remembered the camera.

Mila & Kasper perform their ice dancing rou-tine.

Prof. Yaoguo Li and sons, along with Profs. Terry Young, KenLarner and Max Peeters.

Sarah, Suzie and Liz “Who made this a graduation require-ment?”

The Ice FolliesOur own Canadian star Alison.

Giving mutual encouragement: Joe, Rick, Suzie, Liz, John,Prof. Young and Alisa.

Prof. Batzle–always on thinice.

Top: Cruisin’-Carlos; Bottom:Kumar–notyet ready forthe quadruplejump.

5

IN

THE

FIELD

In April of 1914, innocent men, women, and children wereshot and burned to death in an historical event that is nowknown as the Ludlow Massacre. Coal miners went on striketo raise their $1.68-a-day wages and improve the safety con-ditions. The miners and their families abandoned the coalcompany-controlled housing and town of Ludlow to moveinto a tent colony to the north. As tensions rose, the tentcolony was attacked and burnt to the ground (killing thosewho were not able to escape).

Today the University of Denver's Archeology Departmentis attempting to piece together the events through excava-tion in the area of the tent colony. The CSM GeophysicsDepartment is aiding in their search with the use of magnet-ics. The remanence of the fires and the various metallictools and frames all generate magnetic anomalies. The meas-ured magnetic anomalies can therefore assist in locating theindividual tent sites for excavation.

Blackhawk GeoSciences donated a G-858 (cesium vapor)magnetometer for the project. This instrument is sensitiveto changes as small as 1/100,000 of the magnitude of theEarth's magnetic field and weighs less than 30 lbs. The stu-dents collected data in the field and then returned to theschool to process them.

The design of the course allowed students to develop asuite of MatLab functions for processing magnetic data;some of the functions included operations for upward con-tinuation, Butterworth filtering, and total gradients. Oncethe operations were tested on synthetic datasets, the Lud-low data were analyzed. The figure below is the computedtotal horizontal gradients, which shows linear alignments ofanomalies that are consistent with those expected for thelayout of the tent colony.

Ludlow: Symbiosis of Geophysics and Archeology— Michael Ewing, Shawna Leavitt, and Joe MacGregor

The most recent group of students to explore the Ludlowarea was from Dr. Yaoguo Li's Spring 2002 Advanced Gravi-ty and Magnetic Exploration course.

Tent colony erected north of Ludlow.

The magnetic data acquired at Ludlow site was processed by studentsusing the programs they developed in class. This image shows the to-tal horizontal gradient, which can indicate the locations and edges ofpossible tent sites.

logical and geophysical information, before presentinga final report to the faculty and then celebrating theend of camp with an all-department picnic. The inter-action among students, faculty, and experts fromindustry is a fantastic experience for everyone.

The Geophysics fieldcamp attracts participantsfrom outside the depart-ment. Last year, weenjoyed the participation ofalumna Diane Brownlee,who directs the EllisonMiles Geotechnical Institutein Dallas. During Summer2002, a highlight of thecamp is the participation of

students and faculty from Universidad Central deVenezuela (UCV), arranged by another alumna, Mari-angela Capello, a manger in PDVSA. Perhaps you'dlike to participate next year. Join us!

6

IN

THE

FIELD

F I E L D C A M P

Geophysics field camp continues to be the high-light of the undergraduate educational experi-ence. Between their junior and senior years,

students head for South Park, Colorado to apply whatthey've learned by actually acquiring, processing,interpreting and integrating data from a broad spec-trum of geophysical methodssuch as seismic, gravity, mag-netic, electrical, electromag-netic, and ground penetratingradar.

To set the stage, the fieldcamp begins with a week ofgeologic mapping. Then stu-dents look beneath the sur-face, spending a week in theapplication of various geo-physical methods for shallow subsurface characteriza-tion. During week three, attention turns to deeper geo-physical investigations. Veritas provides state-of-the-art vibroseis equipment and crews, and Sercel pro-vides expert instruction in the use of their latestrecording technology. In the final week, everyonereturns to campus to interpret and integrate all the geo-

Join us!

The Department of Geophysics is grateful forthe generous support provided by Veritas, Sercel,and Talisman Energy that makes it possible tooffer a state-of-the-art field experience to under-graduates. We are also very grateful for thegenerous financial assistance provided to CSM"campers" by Harvey Klingensmith, President ofEl Paso Oil and Gas, Canada.

7

IN

THE

FIELD

8

ALUM

REPORT

TicketNo, we're not talking sex, drugs,

and rock and roll, we're talkingabout a Mines geophysics degree.

Warning: If deep in your heartyou absolutely know that you want tobe a geophysicist forever andever, then good for you—turnthe page now. I don't want todistract you with a few snip-pets from the infinite careerpossibilities that your MinesGP degree will provide you –like, for instance, protectingendangered species, auditingoil tankers, lobbying Con-gress, building commercialsoftware, reversing globalwarming.

If, however, you are a lit-tle bit like I was in 1970-some-thing—slightly glazed overwith 12-page linear systemshomework problems andsometimes feeling like you aredriving down one of those en-chanting old city streets in Florencethat just keeps getting narrower andnarrower until you are firmly stuck ina crack between two buildings—thenread on!

Halfway through my GP BSc.,I remember wondering if my

friends back east attending large lib-eral arts colleges would graduate to abroad universe of prestigious and re-spectable career choices while Iwould be permanently wedged intothe seclusion of arcane nerdom. Well,let me tell you, thankfully, a geo-physics career is not only way cool,but it is carte blanche to a whole uni-verse of fun, eclectic, challenging,and fulfilling jobs that most of those

dumb liberal arts majors will nevereven know about!

Yes, like many others in my class,I graduated into the standard petrole-um exploration job so I could quickly

get out of debt and buy a shiny newred sports car. The highlights of be-ing an entry-level geophysicist at Mo-bil included field assignments in WestTexas in August (120 degrees) andGulf coast swamps in July (120 per-cent humidity). It was HOT, unfamil-iar, challenging, and sometimes dan-gerous. (To hear about the dangerousparts, you will have to buy me a beer.)I loved it. Back in the office in Dal-las, I explored exotic sedimentarybasins like Norton in Alaska, the USAtlantic, and the Norwegian NorthSea with teams of really talented ge-ologists and geophysicists.

During those first career years Ifell in love with the new digi-

tal 3-D seismic imaging and interpre-

tation workstations that were chang-ing everything about petroleum ex-ploration. I jumped from Mobil(rather conservative about technologyat the time) to Sohio (technology-

crazed at the time) where myteam developed one of the firstinteractive 3-D seismic worksta-tions. I became an evangelist forthis new technology and flewaround showing other explo-rationists how to use it. I movedto a full-time technology evan-gelist position at ARCO's PlanoTechnology Center, transferringtechnology out of R&D and intooperations. ARCO then sent meto Bakersfield to work on an ex-otic 3-D seismic research proj-ect—imaging below verticalthrusts.

Just after selling our houseand moving across the

country, my new project wasthreatened with a shut down!

Federal and state agencies thoughtthat our dense seismic activitieswould impact endangered species andhabitat! I was an endangered speciesidiot at the time—but surely, Ithought, can't we (geophysicists,crew, 20-ton vibrators, blunt-noseleopard lizards, kit fox, and kangaroorats) all just get along?

Answering that question took someindustry soul searching, change, andthen some serious evangelizing. Wetrained over 100 crew members inhabitat recognition, species identifi-cation, encounter preparedness, andreporting procedures. We brought inbotanists and wildlife biologists toboss us around. We created bilingualtraining materials, hosted field train-

to Anywhereby Susan Perrell

Susan M. Perrell is a 1981 graduate from the CSM Depart-ment of Geophysics and currently Vice President of Man-agement Systems and Information for CH2M Hill in SantaAna California. We thank Susan for agreeing to share hercareer experiences in this article. You may contact Susan atsperrell@ch2m.com.

9

ALUM

REPORT

ing sessions and tested our crew's newknowledge and skills. Our seismicprogram was redesigned to minimize,measure, mitigate, and report envi-ronmental impacts. Our performanceimpressed regulators and soon mycompany decided that this geophysi-cist should be an environmental engi-neer for our pipeline company in LA.

On my first day in LA, I stum-bled onto our large groundwa-

ter contamination clean up at a formerrefinery site. There was a bunch ofexpensive environmental consultantsmuddling around and it was a greatopportunity for an engineer with a pe-troleum geoscience background tohelp out. After working severalgroundwater projects, I transferred toARCO's corporate remediation group.I managed multi-million dollar Super-fund and other assessment and reme-diation projects all over the US, mostof them involving contentious issues,public relations and outreach, regula-tory agency negations, and legal bat-tles.

Environmental, health, and safetypolicy became the focus of my work,and I moved into a corporate policyconsultant position in the public af-fairs group at ARCO. I commuted toWashington DC to work with lobby-ists, trade groups, environmentalistgroups, congressional staffers, and theAdministration on legislation. I hadalways liked the writing and evangel-izing part of my job: now it actuallywas my job to write and evangelize!I helped to develop legislation andbuild political alliances, including

some astonishingly unlikely ones, toforward our agenda. I developed pol-icy positions, speeches, and congres-sional testimony, and briefed our ex-ecutives and CEO.

Washington amazed me. Fly-ing out to my first mission

there, I expected to land in a swarmof lazy, stupid bureaucrats. Certainlythere are some of those in Washing-ton and certainly they could use awhole lot more Mines geophysicsgrads to straighten things out. Butmost of the folks I worked with inWashington worked relentlessly hard,long, hours, and I found both Democ-rats and Republicans to be very smartand articulate about their views—andprofoundly crafty about promotingthem. I wouldn't trade my experiencethere for anything!

Ileft public policy to become fab-ulously rich (hah!) in the soft-

ware industry by co-founding a start-up for environmental informationmanagement. This was just before thedawn of the dot.coms, but the soft-ware industry had already gone crazy.We raised a million dollars, hired anengineering staff, developed our firstversion of our first product, andlaunched with great hoopla. Our in-vestors were wonderful people, butthe expectations for hockey-stick rev-enue growth in our brand new marketwere not achievable—by us or by ourcompetition. After a grueling fouryears, with only small successes, ourstart-up turned into a start-down. Itwas my first career failure and I wastotally horrified. Where did we screw

up? Oh my, that is a two-beer story.We'll have to slouch down into thedark corners of the Ace High Tavern(does it still exist?) for that one. Butthe career of a Mines GP goes on!And two years later I am still discov-ering how very much I learned fromthat experience.

Today I'm at CH2M HILL, avenerable, 12,000-employee,

$2B engineering firm, where I pro-vide Management and InformationSystems solutions for all kinds ofclients around the world. I have aneclectic job (surprise!) that leveragesmuch of what I've already done whileproviding new management consult-ing and leadership opportunities. Mywork incorporates environmental,health and safety management, man-agement systems, project manage-ment, marketing, PR, sales, policy, in-dustrial processes, and most impor-tantly, information technology. I lovethe challenges of creating, selling, anddelivering different products andservices to different clients and indus-tries.

And last but certainly not least,I have a family who somehow

puts up with my whacky career, trav-els, annoying habits, and continualtransformations. They tell me theywouldn't have it any other way. Oh,and lest I forget, my husband and Iarranged our first date while debug-ging a computer program together inthe Green Center. Thank you, Col-orado School of Mines GeophysicsDepartment!

10

DEPARTMENT

HIGHLIGHTS

In the Physical Acoustics Laboratory (PAL) we study theproperties of waves in rocks and other complicated ma-terials. We specialize in the use of non-contacting ultra-

sonic methods that exploitlasers to both excite anddetect waves. The reasonwe’re interested in theproperties of waves atsuch high frequencies(compared to seismicwaves) is two-fold. Onthe one hand it is impor-tant to know the frequen-cy dependence of materi-al properties over manyorders of magnitude in or-der to check theoreticalwork on “up-scaling” ofthe microscopic proper-ties of rocks. By usingresonance and wave prop-agation we can study fre-quencies from a few KHzup to hundreds of MHz.

On the other hand, andthis may seem surprisingin the year 2002, there aremany aspects of wavepropagation in heteroge-neous media that are not well-understood. This is especial-ly true when it comes to multiple scattering, that is, whenwaves bounce around repeatedly. If there is strong multiplescattering it turns out that seismic waves propagate diffu-sively, like heat, rather than ballistically, like true waves.In the laboratory we can analyze the physics of wave prop-agation with precision and clarity that would be impossibleto obtain in the field. If we want to try to exploit multiplyscattered waves in field data it is crucial that we understandthe theory. Applications of these new ideas to seismic andradar field data are in the planning stage, but laboratory

Physical— John A. Scales

Acoustics Lab

measurements have proven to be invaluable in our under-standing.

Students in the PAL interact with other groups in the de-partment, especially Professor Batzle’s Rock Physics Lab-oratory, and the theoretical group of Professor Snieder. Forexample, Snieder and his students have developed a newtechnique that uses multiply scattered seismic waves to de-tect small changes in material properties. Key measure-ments illustrating this theory were carried out in the PAL.Further, laser-based methods may open up new areas ofrock physics measurements. Other groups on campus arealso interested in utilizing non-contacting ultrasonic meth-ods in a variety of applications, especially in the character-ization of material properties where it is impossible or im-practical to use contacting sensors. This could be at the verysmall scale or with samples that are too fragile to attachsensors to, or in hostile environments such as quarry blasts,mines or combustion chambers. It may even be possible to

use lasers to remotely de-tect land mines.

In the Lab we feel fortu-nate to be able to use cut-ting edge technology tostudy the fundamental as-pects of wave propagationwhile at the same time do-ing research that may havea long-term impact ongeophysical exploration,near-surface characteriza-tion, materials science andother problems of eco-nomic and social impor-tant.

Major funding for thePAL has been provided bythe Army Research Officeand the National ScienceFoundation.

Professor John Scales takes measurements using the newly acquiredoptical bench and other NSF-supported equipment in the PhysicalAcoustics Laboratory.

Professor Scales has created an impressive, total-immersion environment for graduate research. John andhis students share an office adjacent to their lab on the“garden level” of the Green Center. Serious conversa-tions are conducted there as well as on fast-paced bikerides to the “M” and back. This intense interaction hasled to research breakthroughs and exemplary publica-tions from this team of professor and students.

DEPARTMENT

HIGHLIGHTS

11

What is the likelihood thatOlympus Dam in Estes Parkmight fail, causing another

catastrophic flood of the Big Thomp-son Canyon? Whatare the chances ofdoing real-time,look-ahead tomogra-phy to identify po-tential zones of rockfailure ahead of astate-of-the-art tun-nel-boring opera-tion? What are theodds of finding a huge, economic gasdeposit under the Columbia Plateaubasalts in Washington State?

These are some of the questionssophomores were asked to analyze inthe EPICS 251 class (EngineeringPractices Introductory Course Se-quence) taught last semester by Pro-fessors Roel Snieder and Terry Young,along with teaching assistant ErinWallin.

The students carried out projects forthree external clientsthat focussed onrisk in the geosciences. The first groupworked on a project for the Bureau ofReclamation studying the risk of aFront Range dam collapse with a fair-ly large population downstream. Thestudents came to the conclusion thatraising the dam in order to accommo-date a catastrophic run-off did notmake sense because economical pres-sure to use the increased storage ca-pacity would lead to an even higherrisk. As an alternative, they proposeda monitoring and warning system that

could reduce the impact of a dam col-lapse.

The second group carried out a proj-ect for NSA Engineering. This compa-

ny, based in Golden, Colorado, usesseismic methods in engineering proj-ects. One of their projects is a seismicsystem for tunneling operations thatcreates an image ahead of the drillingdevice. The students studied alterna-tive configurations of the seismicsources and the geophone locations inorder to improve the resolution of theimages. With NSA-personnel they car-ried out a field experiment in theEdgar Mine that is op-erated by CSM.

The third group ofstudents worked for aresource investmentcompany that is basedin Golden to assess thefeasibility of exploringa hydrocarbon reser-voir that is located un-der thick basaltic lay-ers. The costs ofdrilling and the likeli-hood of successfully producing such areservoir are different from a reservoir

in sedimentary rocks. After a crashcourse in well-log interpretation andformation evaluation from Prof. MaxPeeters, the third group of students re-viewed log data provided by theirclient and decided they could onlysupport one of the three play conceptshypothesized for this high-risk area.

The stu-dents workedwith enthusi-asm on theseprojects andended the se-

mester with presentations to theirclients–who all expressed pleasure atthe students’ creativity.

Roel and Terry plan to teach anoth-er section of EPICS 251, again focus-ing on risk and uncertainty in the geo-sciences but using a different collec-tion of projects. Perhaps you have aproject to offer? If so, contact Roel orTerry at rsnieder@mines.edu or tky-oung@mines.edu.

– Roel Snieder

EPICSRisk in the Geos

One EPICS group studied dam collapse risk preventionand preparedness for the Bureau of Reclamation.

ciences

Some Things in Life ARE Free!Seismic Unix (SU) is a self-contained

software environment for seismic re-search and data processing that is com-patible with all Unix and Unix-like op-eration systems. CWP Research Asso-

ciate John Stockwell, SU co-developer and project man-ager, maintains the software and implements its many up-dates and improvements.

SU is freely distributed on the Internet, and you may ac-cess it at http://www.cwp.mines.edu/cwpcodes. There arecurrently 2200 installations of SU in 55 countries.

SU The Internet archive, Samizdat Press, offers a free col-lection of books and lecture notes that you may download.Samizdat was begun by John Scales at CSM and MartinSmith of New England Research as a vehicle for distribut-ing technical documents of interest, at no cost to the user.Check out the list of Samizdat Press offerings at the website: http://landau.mines.edu/~samizdat.

12

DEPARTMENT

HIGHLIGHTS

Research Teams Promote Student Learningand Productivity

“A-Team” stands for theA(nisotropy) Team – agroup of professors andstudents from the Centerfor Wave Phenomena

(CWP) and the Reservoir Characterization Pro-ject (RCP) doing research in seismic anisotropy.

Guided by professors Ilya Tsvankin and KenLarner, the A-Team works on practical methodsof processing and inversion of seismic data for re-alistic anisotropic, heterogeneous subsurfacemodels.

Almost exclusively, the seismic explorationmethod has been founded on the simplifying as-sumption that the earth behaves as an isotropicmedium. That is, the fact that the speed at whichseismic waves travel might depend on the propa-gation direction, previously had been consideredto be of little importance or too complicated totake into account in exploration practice.

The work within the A-Team over the past decade has ledto a number of breakthroughs that show not only how to cor-rectly process seismic data in the presence of anisotropy,but also how to derive the parameters of the anisotropic sub-surface which carry crucial information about lithology andfracture networks.

The main focus of the currentA-Team research is anisotropicparameter estimation and imag-ing using multi-componentmulti-azimuth 3-D reflectiondata, with emphasis on analysisof mode-converted PS waves.

The group has been remark-ably productive, publishingdozens of papers and sometimesfilling entire sessions at SEGmeetings with its presentations.The importance of the A-Team results is widely recognizedby the exploration community and government agencies.

For pioneering work in seismic anisotropy, Professor IlyaTsvankin has been awarded the Virgil Kauffman Gold Medalof the SEG, and CSM alums Tariq Alkhalifah, AndreasRueger and Vladimir Grechka have received SEG’sClarence Karcher Award as outstanding young scientists.The team actively participates in the research program ofthe U.S. Department of Energy, currently collaborating withcolleagues from Stanford and the Lawrence Livermore Na-tional Laboratory on a large DOE project aimed at explo-ration and development of naturally fractured reservoirs.

One of the main reasons for the group’s success is activeinteraction both among A-Team members and with manyresearch groups around the globe, in particular with geo-physicists in companies sponsoring CWP and RCP. Al-though the main attraction of the weekly A-Team seminarsmay be the famous anisotropic cookies, the seminars are

also known for their sometimes heated dis-cussions and informal atmosphere that fos-ter creativity and help students to embarkon new projects.

TEAMAA

Among those who attend the weekly A-Team seminar are (back, left to right)Kumar Gautam, Reynaldo Cardona, Pawan Dewangan, Debashish Sarkar andZhu Yaping; (front, left to right) Ilya Tsvankin, Petr Jílek and Andrés Pech. Notpictured are Dong-Jie Cheng and Ken Larner.

Studying research problems in asmall-group atmosphere has provenbeneficial to graduate students in theDepartment who enjoy the opportunityto learn from each other and the com-radery that results. The A(nisotropy)-Team is one such group and isdescribed here by Professor IlyaTsvankin.

13

DEPARTMENT

HIGHLIGHTS

Spreading the Word...

Always on the lookout for new talent, the Department of Geophysics was high-ly visible at the CSM Minority Engineering Conference attended by local highschool groups. Pictured here are geophysics students Begoña Ruiz and JessicaSigala, staffing the Department booth. They are surrounded by enthusiastic CSMhopefuls who are displaying the previous issue of our newsletter!

CSM Geophysics Group Attends SAGEEP2002 Conference

During the weekof February 10ththru 14th, geoscien-tists from near andfar inundated LasVegas, Nevada, to

attend the SAGEEP 2002 Conferenceon the Application of Geophysics toEngineering and Environmental Prob-lems. Eleven CSM undergraduatesand four graduate students attended,along with numerous alumni and pro-fessionals, affording the students plen-ty of networkingopportunities.The ColoradoSchool of Mineswas also well rep-resented by an in-formation boothon “college row”.

Participating ina professionalconference is agreat opportunityfor students tolearn about cur-rent investiga-tions, techniques, and equipment be-ing used in industry and among re-search facilities. With a variety oftopics such as geophysical investiga-tions conducted under extreme condi-tions, groundwater and mine mappingand monitoring, and infrastructures in-vestigations, students were able to at-tend talks that related to past class-room case studies and environmentalinterests.

Relating several of the presenta-tions to their senior design projects,students also listened to talks aboutUXO and GPR applications. Fromthis exposure, students were able toevaluate their educational experienceagainst the demands of industry, real-izing that a Mines education providesa strong background to pursue a vari-ety of careers.

– Sarah Shearer

By day–our undergraduates gather-ing at the CSM conference booth;and by night–making friends at theLas Vegas Star Trek Experience.

14

SPONSOR

NEWS

Lesley Evans graduated fromRice University with a BA inGeophysics, and completed aMSc from the University ofColorado in geology studyingice sheet/climate interactions inBaffin Bay, Canada. She joinedAmoco Production Company in

1989 as an operations ge-ologist working tight gasreservoirs in southwestWyoming. She spent oneyear at Amoco’s Petro-physical Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she worked on theLance Reservoir in the Jonah Field for pay prediction and completionseffectiveness. Lesley joined Schlumberger’s reservoir modeling team in1998 to broaden her experience and to apply her petrophysical skills.Her first three years with Schlumberger were spent modeling complexcarbonate reservoirs–particularly the natural fractures and vugs utilizingimage logs. For the last year, she has been back to working on tight gassandstone reservoir characterization in the Rockies.

Shell Foundation Grant Applied to New Lab

Schlumberger ‘Loans’ Lesley Evans as Visiting Professor

Thanks to agift of $25,000from the ShellFoundation, the

Department of Geophysicshas teamed up with CSM'sComputing Center to de-sign a new computationallab consisting of a clusterof Linux workstations.Shell's grant has been in-corporated as “seed mon-ey” in a proposal formatching funds to completethe lab. The Departmentwill use the lab for instruc-tion in Python and Java.The lab will be availableduring prime time for in-

Professor of Petrophysics and BoreholeGeophysics, Max Peeters, will be at theCurtin University of Technology in PerthAustralia as a visiting professor during theFall 2002 semester. During that time,Schlumberger has generously agreed to makeLesley Evans, one of their leading petro-physicists, available to the Department.

Lesley has more than ten years experiencein petrophysics and has published more than17 articles. She will be a full faculty mem-ber, give courses, advise the six petrophysicsstudents and direct the Center for Petro-physics. Considering that the majority of ourundergraduate students is female, it is grati-fying that we will again have a female facul-ty, albeit temporarily.

Schlumberger has been a strong supporterof programs at Mines. Last summer, Schlum-berger’s Kami Norlin made a hug impact asa participant in the Minority EngineeringProgram. The company recently establishedscholarships for women in geology and geo-physics at CSM. We are grateful for Schlum-berger’s contributions to Mines!

Lesley Evans

Max Peeters recently host-ed Lesley on campus as aHeiland Lecturer.

structional use by other de-partments. During off-peakhours, the lab will be usedfor large-scale computa-tional experiments in geo-physical research. The de-partment's next project isinstallation of an interpre-tation and visualization lab.

Shell and the Shell Foun-dation have been generoussponsors of geophysics ed-ucation and research atCSM. We are grateful fordiscretionary monies fromShell Foundation that en-able us to undertake impor-tant projects of this kind.

Imagine this room with a cluster of Linux workstations andGeophysics faculty members teaching Python and Java, orstudents working on large-scale computational experiments.

15

VISITING

COMMITTEE

The Department of Geophysics is both privileged andhonored to have such a distinguished panel of expertsappointed by the Board of Trustees to serve as our Vis-iting Committee.

The Committee visited campus in late February toobserve and to interact on all levels—with geophysicsstudents, staff, faculty, and CSM administration. TheDepartment appreciates the effort of this group to seekimprovements for our benefit.

Pictured top row, left to right:• Dr. Peter Annan, President, Sensors and Software (On-

tario)• Dr. Mike Ritzwoller, Professor, Dept. of Physics, CU

(Boulder)• Dr. Kay Wyatt, Phillips Fellow Emeritus, Phillips

(Bartlesville)• Mr. Jim Payne, CEO Chairman, Nuevo Energy (Hous-

ton)• Mr. Harvey R. Klingensmith*, President,El Paso Oil

and Gas Canada (Calgary)• Mr. Gary Jones, President, Schlumberger WesternGeco

(Gatwick, England)• Mr. Rob Kendall, Sr. Geophysicist, Veritas (Calgary)Pictured bottom row, left to right:• Mr. Richard Degner, President, PGS Onshore (Houston)• Dr. Rosemary J. Knight, Professor, Dept. of Geo-

physics, Stanford University• Mr. Mo Crous, Mgr. Exploration Technology, Talisman

Energy (Calgary)• Ms. Karen Ostrander-Krug, CSM Trustee (Golden)• Mr. S. Rutt Bridges, CEO, BigHorn Center for Public

Policy (Colorado)• Dr. Mary Lou Zoback, Chief Scientist, USGS (Menlo

Park, CA)Not pictured:• Mr. George Wood, President, Sercel (Houston)• Dr. Yoram Shoham, VP, External Relations, Shell

(Houston)* Committee Chairperson

The VisitingCommittee

Visiting Committee members have the opportunity dur-ing lunch for more casual interactions with studentsand staff.

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FACULTY

NEWS

The Faculty at WorkThe Faculty Retreat is an annual summer

event during which faculty members from theDepartment of Geophysics get away to con-sider some of the deeper philosophical issuesthat don't get adequate attention during theweekly faculty meetings of the fast-movingacademic year.

Past retreats have been held at various ven-ues near and far. During the most recent twoyears, the faculty has gathered in early Julyat the Carriage House of the Boettcher Man-sion on Lookout Mountain. As this photo col-lage reveals, the setting is a pleasant one bothindoors and out. Some of the heartier soulssuch as John Scales and Roel Snieder arriveon bicycle.

During Summer 2002 the faculty will at-tend the traditional retreat in July plus a“computer programming bootcamp” in Au-gust, immediately before the start of Fall se-mester. Faculty members have committed tomastering Python and Java before geophysicsstudents switch from C++ to these computerlanguages in 2002-2003.

Cyclist John Scales arrives. Max Peeters presents.

Tom Boyd, Gary Olhoeft and John Scales continue the discussion out-of-doors.

Peter Hoekstra, Norm Bleistein, Tom Davis andMike Batzle.

Ilya Tsvankin, Roel Snieder, Tom Boyd and Ken Larner talk business.

Ken Larner – is that ared pen he’s holding?

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FACULTY

NEWS

Professor Alex Kaufman, a perfect 10? Nearly. (If youdon't believe me, check out the beach picture!)

Alex Kaufman turned 70 thisyear, and he is celebrating withsome fantastic accolades fromthe undergraduates for his out-standing teaching. ProfessorKaufman sets the standard forexcellent teaching in a depart-ment with some other very fineprofessors. His presentationand explanation of difficult sub-ject matter is superb. He is ex-pert at using oral examinationsin all of his classes to make test

taking a valuable extension of the teaching and learning ex-perience. This approach greatly enhances the maturity ofstudents with re-spect to their abili-ty to articulate anddefend their ideason technical sub-jects.

Alex teaches fourdifferent under-graduate coursesrequired of everystudent majoring ingeophysical engi-neering. Last year,his course evalua-tions contained high praise. In a separate survey givenby the department, 90% of the undergraduates gave hima perfect 10. One student commented, “. . . he's one ofthe world's finest professors and people.” Another said,“He’s the best teacher in the department." A third put itmore succinctly: “Teach forever!”

When asked what Professor Kaufman could do to im-prove his teaching, one studentwrote, “Nothing . . . the Kauf-man learning experience in its

entirety should not be missed.” These comments are indica-tive of those given by students in their exit interviews, ex-pressing the way class after class of students feel about thetruly life-changingexperience of learn-ing from Dr. Kauf-man.

Perhaps the bestcomment was madeby a young womantrying to decide be-tween majoring inGeology or Geo-physics. At first shementioned that per-haps she shouldstudy Geology, be-

cause she had notdone so well inher latest physicsclass. Then, after thinking a moment, she said, “Oh,but you have that Russian professor who fixes every-body in the area of physics and mathematics!”

Professor Kaufman: A Perfect 10– Terry Young

Students used digital wizardry toinclude Alex in their “hunks of fieldcamp” calendar.

Dr. Kaufman and his wife, Irina.

On the slopes with Terry Young.

Alex Kaufman immigrated from Russia to the U.S., by way ofCanada, with his wife Irina and his son Dimitri. Dimitri is now acardiologist in the Denver area. Alex is in his 25th year of teach-ing at CSM. Since 1992, Professor Kaufman has written fourgeophysics textbooks that have been published by AcademicPress and Elsevier, and he is now completing a fifth.

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GP Day is one of those miraculousrites of Spring. The Department ofGeophysics adjourns its regular pro-gram in favor of a picnic and volley-ball at Lyons Park in Golden. TheSSG (Societyof StudentGeophysi-cists) unveilsits newlyprinted t-shirt, and blue jeans are theuniform of the day. By nightfall, how-ever, squirt-gun-carrying coeds are glo-riously beamed into evening gowns,and guys into jacket and tie, for a for-mal banquet in which undergraduatesand graduate students join togetherto roast the faculty in very goodtaste. The toast of the evening at lastyear's GP Day was the appearance ofProfessor Batzle in a tuxedo. Whowould've guessed he'd be out on pa-role . . . .

GP

DAY

GPDay!

The Celebration Begins

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GRADUATION

Graduation2001

Department of GeophysicsB.S. Degree

Gregory David BensonHolly Dawn HindleDavid August HollemaErin Rae KockJustin James ModrooSuzanne Kay MooreAnthony Stephen NalepaTheodore Leigh RoyerAngelina Christine SouthcottJoseph Aaron TeffWhitney Jane TrainorAmy Nicole WalkerJonathan Andrew Woolley

M.S. and M.E. DegreesLuis Henrique AmaralTagir Edgartovich GalikeevRonny HofmannJames Allen KovatsCarlos MoitaMicah ReasnorMehmet A. Sunnetcioglu

Ph.D. DegreeSverre Brandsberg-DahlRaul Cabrera-GarzonLuca DurantiEdward JennerJérôme H. Le RousseauGwenola Michaud

Ed, Sverre and Jérôme sporting their caps and gowns.

Bittersweet day for classmates Suzie and Justin.

December graduates Tony Nalepa (left) and JonWoolley (right) are congratulated by Tony’s brotherand CSM alum Chris Nalepa.

Mehmet is cheered by well wishers.

Whitney gives graduate Amy a send-off.

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Department of GeophysicsColorado School of Mines1500 Illinois StreetGolden, CO 80401-1887

Nonprofit Organization

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Permit No. 7

– Photo by Derek Wilson

Alumni – What have you been up to?

We don’t stay students forever—and one might wonder what’s next for these squirt-gun-bearing grads who terrorizedtheir fellow students during GP Day activities. Give us some examples of a CSM engineer’s “life after college” bysending us an email or letter and even a picture with an update on your current activities—we’ll even accept a full-pagearticle! We’d truly like to hear from you (tkyoung@mines.edu).