Chris Fielding, a current editor of Earth Science Reviews, was the guest speaker at the PESA WA Technical Lunch for August. The presentation showcased the critical importance of high quality field work in understanding depositional processes and environments of coastal to shallow marine sandstone bodies in the Cenomanian/Turonian succession of Utah and Wyoming. The talk included details on the mapping and interpretation of Frontier deltas across a 70km by 5km section in the Vernal area of northern Utah and left the audience keen to get out and about and look at some outcrops.
PESA Branch Activities
PESA WA Branch Winter Warmer 2019
It’s that blessed time of year when the PESA Winter Warmer provides respite from the weather’s ravages and solace from EOFY traumas. This year, PESA secured the prestigious surroundings of the Celtic Club in West Perth and on a decidedly chilly Friday evening in July a glass of mulled wine on arrival was most welcome. A record turnout of over 80 souls enjoyed the delicious lip-smacking food platters and beverage selection. Conversations were long and florid and went on for many hours, with frivolities only interrupted by the prize raffle drawer.
PESA WA May Evening Talk – Laurence Letki
Laurence Letki’s presentation highlighted wave-equation based techniques, such as full waveform inversion (FWI), as an integral addition to the modeling toolbox. The talk demonstrated how modern computing power allows the use of high frequencies in FWI and the resultant resolution of finer details. The presentation was held at “The George” on Tuesday 21st May. Many thanks to Discover Geoscience, our evening talk sponsor.
PESA WA May Branch Luncheon
“If you’ve got an unconventionals focused geologist in your company, go talk to them, you might be surprised at the learnings applicable to conventional hydrocarbon accumulations”. That was the takeaway from Avon McIntyre’s WA Branch May luncheon talk - “Bursting Source Rock and Strange Hydrocarbon Occurrences Around the World”. The presentation challenged attendees' thoughts on maturation, migration and charge-timing (all may be later than we think) through analysis of unconventional geology. Photos of explosively delaminated source rocks and abandoned gilsonite mines complimented an excellent talk. Many thanks to Spectrum, Searcher and DownUnder Geophysical for sponsoring the event.
PESA WA April Evening Talk – Rosine Riera
Rosine Riera’s talk outlining her current PhD thesis analyzing the Oligo-Miocene subtropical carbonate overburden of the Northern Carnarvon Basin was very well attended. This was PESA WA’s third evening talk for 2019 and was held at “The George” on Tuesday 30th April. Many thanks to Discover Geoscience for sponsoring the evening and to the University of Western Australia for allowing Rosine to present to PESA WA. Perth’s first cold evening for the season saw pre-talk drinks and networking at the bar welcomed by attendees.
PESA QLD Luncheon “Making Good Decisions under Uncertainty” – Prof. Steve Begg
On a sweaty Tuesday morning in Brisbane’s February, a diverse group of industry individuals piled eagerly into a training room at Santos’ office, ready to improve their abilities to “Make Good Decisions under Uncertainty”. Under the wise tutelage of Prof. Steve Begg, a man whose experience in the industry and in academia totals more years than most of our student members, participants from companies including Arrow, Central, Geosolve, Santos, Senex, Shell, and others, quickly found out that decision-making is more complex than a first glance would suggest. Opening the course with a questionnaire revealed just how dire the situation was.
PESA WA Evening Talk – AAPG President, Denise Cox
The PESA WA evening talks programme kicked off for 2019 on 12 March, hosted with thanks to our evening talk sponsor Discover Geoscience. The Grand Bar and Bistro was filled to capacity for the talk on the role of geoscience in sustainable energy development – “recycling” the Permian Basin, West Texas presented by visiting AAPG President Denise Cox. Various companies and academic institutions were represented in the crowd of well over 60 initially meeting in the Grand’s outdoor space for food, drinks and networking before heading upstairs for the talk.
Obituary – Peter Marriott Barber PhD
Dr Peter Barber, a well-known petroleum geologist and sequence stratigrapher, died peacefully in Murdoch Hospice on 13th December 2018. He was 68 years old. Peter Barber was born in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, England on 21st June 1950. He grew up with his younger brothers Martin and Jerry in Dartford, Kent. Peter was four years old before his parents realised that he was profoundly deaf. Despite this handicap and with the help of a hearing aid, Peter did very well at school and gained admission the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He graduated in 1972 with a BSc (Honours) degree in Geology.
Kevin Hill’s course on Structural Geology for Petroleum systems
PESA WA was lucky enough to be able to persuade Kevin Hill to travel across to Perth in order to give us a 4 day training course on structural geology. For the group who attended this was a solid learning experience covering techniques and examples that helped us rethink the way we go about interpreting. Throughout the 4 days, we covered structural examples from extensional regimes, compressional, strike slip, and also salt. This was accompanied by numerous hands on exercises where we determined growth sections and fault timing, reactivations, and may other methods of understanding the data.
PESA-ASEG WA 2nd Young Professional Speakers Night
Continuing from our first event in April, in mid-October PESA WA Young Professionals in conjunction with ASEG WA held our second speaker’s night. With approximately 20 members attending, the first speaker, Tasman Gilfeather-Clark, presented his work on SOM and machine learning, which formed part of Team Macquarie’s submission for the Frank Arnott Award. The second speaker, Vincent Crombez, gave a brief overview of his PhD. following work on unconventional fields in western Canada. The talks gave insights to two vastly different sides of different industries.