PESA Vic/Tas October Meeting

Guest Speaker(s): Dr Douglas Waples, consultant (Kuala Lumpur)

Dr. Douglas Waples received his PhD in 1971 in physical organic chemistry from Stanford University, and immediately shifted his interest to petroleum geochemistry. His work experience has included stints in research laboratories at Chevron, Mobil, and the Japan National Oil Corporation, a faculty position at the Colorado School of Mines, and 30 years as an independent consultant in oil exploration. In 2013 he founded Sirius Exploration Geochemistry to further his consultancy work and to promote development of new technologies related to source-rock kinetics and basin modeling. Doug has participated in the development of several commercial software programs and is one of the founders of modern basin modelling. He is also responsible for the development of source-rock kinetics as a revolutionary technology capable of functioning as a new and direct indicator of hydrocarbon generation and thermal maturity and as a means of identifying distinct organofacies. Dr. Waples has executed basin-modeling studies all over the world in many tectonic settings. He also developed and published in 2001 a revision of the McKenzie model for heat flow through time in rift basins, and his views, radical at the time, have become standard. Most recently, his innovative work in basin modeling has focused on integrating sequence and chronostratigraphy with reconstructions of geohistory, including unconformities and paleobathymetry and -elevation. He has published more than a hundred papers, abstracts, and book chapters, as well as four technical videos.