Dick Paten was a well-known and highly respected Queensland geologist who contributed greatly to the petroleum exploration industry and its organisations – including PESA, QUPEX and APEA (the precursor of APPEA, and now AEP).
In 1977, along with Lee Pfitzner and Maurie Drew, he was instrumental in holding the first PESA Queensland Symposium, an event that lives on today. This event was instigated by the parlous state of petroleum exploration in Queensland at the time: In the words of VG Swindon, the Chair of that first Symposium:
- There are no exploration wells drilling
- There are no seismic crews shooting
- Our remaining reserves of gas stand at around 200 billion cubic feet of which less than half are adjacent to existing or programmed pipelines
- Our remaining liquid reserves stand at around 2.6 million barrels
- Our gas production is around 30 million cubic feet per day and our oil production is just over 1000 barrels per day.
In 1979 Dick was the President of QUPEX, and between 1985 to 1987 he was the PESA Federal President. Dick was awarded PESA Distinguished Member status in 1989. He was part of the 2000 APPEA Conference Committee.
Dick had a background in both botany and geology, which made his palynological contributions to Australian geological knowledge definitive. He also had a profound depth of knowledge on sometimes arcane subjects and was known for unexpected responses to statements in social conversations.
Dick joined Mines Administration (MinAd) around 1959/60. He opened and managed the first palaeontology lab, setting up in the old office at the top of Charlotte Street in Brisbane. He later worked at Oil Company of Australia (OCA), which became Origin, and was working there upon his retirement.
During the 1960s, he contributed to many regional studies, including the Tertiary geology of the Boulia Region, the notes accompanying the Clermont 4-mile geology sheet (and later the geology of the 1:250,00 sheet).
His greatest professional disappointment was the lack of real success in the Adavale Basin, being firmly of the opinion that great hydrocarbon rewards would emerge from that region.
He also later contributed to the Ashgrove Historical Society, writing a historical perspective of Ashgrove. Dick married Del (now deceased) in 1960 and is survived by two children and two grandchildren.
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