This Month's Explorer Articles

In an interconnected world full of economic, political and technological challenges, energy professionals must find agile and innovative solutions to meet demand. The fourth annual International Meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy is designed to equip geoscientists and energy professionals with the knowledge and tools needed to be successful in an evolving energy landscape. The 2024 theme, “Your Passport to Global Energy,” reflects organizers’ commitment to provide a single gathering place for geoscience professionals throughout the world, as well as a pronounced deviation from the traditional practice of organizing the content by discipline. Instead, geology topics in the IMAGE ’24 program are divided into regional/themes: Africa, Asia Pacific, Eastern Mediterranean/Middle East, Europe/Caspian, Latin America and Caribbean (including Mexico) and North America (focusing on the United States and Canada).

Maram AlSaif went to work for Saudi Aramco as a research geologist in 2018, and recently conducted graduate studies at Texas A&M University under a company sponsorship. This month, she will present research at IMAGE ‘24 on the energy industry’s most unavoidable subject: The Permian Basin. Bob Lindsay began working the Permian Basin area for Chevron in the 1980s. At the International Meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy, he will discuss his three and a half decades of research and observations on the basin’s residual oil zones. This year’s IMAGE includes multiple presentations on the Permian, from multiple points of view and angles of research. And it’s no wonder so many eyes are on this prolific, long-established hydrocarbon asset.

The future of the Mars Sample Return mission that was to return core samples to Earth for detailed study, looking for signs of possible past Martian life, is uncertain as NASA’s Perseverance rover continues its extended mission exploring Jezero Crater. The rover successfully landed on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021, its primary surface mission designed to last one Mars year, or 687 Earth days. It reached that milestone on Jan. 6, 2023 and it is now in its extended mission.

For quite some time, Mexico’s largest oilfields have been steeply declining in production. Once considered one of the largest producers in the world, Mexico has been struggling to explore and exploit its resources. For Alfredo E. Guzmán, a former vice president of exploration at Pemex and charter commissioner of Mexico’s National Hydrocarbons Commission, the solution lies in the nation’s great wealth of unconventional resources. He believes the Chicontepec tight oil formation and the Upper Jurassic shale oil formations have all the necessary characteristics for rejuvenation – just like the Permian.

AAPG’s annual celebration of geoscience AAPG’s annual celebration of geoscience excellence is shining its spotlight on 20 outstanding members who have been chosen the recipients of the Association’s honors and awards for 2025. Leading the 2025 awards list are two individuals who have excelled throughout their careers in leadership and in advancing the science of petroleum geology – John Kaldi, this year’s recipient of the Sidney Powers Memorial Award, and Edward “Ted” Beaumont, selected for the Michel T. Halbouty Outstanding Leadership Award.

There were always two love stories going on. "Our first date was a geology field trip, Linda and I shared a sandwich on an outcrop." That comes from this year's winner of the Michel T. Halbouty Outstanding Leadership Award, Charles A. Sternbach, and the Linda to whom he refers is Linda Sternbach, his spouse, a geoscientist in her own right, and someone who's been with him on every step of his geological journey. She is the first love. His second? Let's put it this way. His email name is “Carbodude.” AAPG gives the Halbouty Award for exceptional leadership in the petroleum geosciences and past winners, including the most important names in Geology. The award speaks to their commitment, focus and passion for teaching and leading geologists. And to that extent, Sternbach fits right in.

The accurate estimation of subsurface rock properties is crucial to petroleum exploration and reservoir management. And sonic logs play a key role by linking seismic and well data for integrated geoscience interpretations. They help in building good synthetic seismograms in well-seismic ties, in creating low frequency models in impedance inversions and in estimating pore pressures and geomechanical properties in wellbore stability studies. Yet, sonic logs are not regularly acquired in wells due to the high cost associated with acquiring them.

There is a reason we studied historical geology as undergraduates. That class laid a firm foundation for our geoscience careers by stressing how important it is to look far back in time, before we move forward in any modern petroleum-related project, especially with an existing field. This is true, not just for deep time, but also for exploration and development projects on legacy salt domes which were explored and developed in the early 1900s on the Gulf Coastal Plain of Texas and Louisiana.

Three military veterans plus two dependents of military veterans, all lauded already for their first academic steps toward careers as professional geoscientists, have been selected as this year’s recipients of the AAPG Foundation’s Deana and Paul Strunk Military Veterans Scholarships. They become the 54-58th recipients of the Foundation’s MVSP, whose first scholarships were awarded in 2015, and the highest number of awardees for a given year since 2019. The MVSP is among the AAPG Foundation’s most popular and respected initiatives, which Foundation chair Jim McGhay said they are “proud and excited” to provide.

For our members living in the greater Houston area, the month of July delivered a stark reminder of our dependence on available and reliable energy as Hurricane Beryl knocked out power to millions of residents in the global energy capital. No energy means no air conditioning, no internet and no refrigeration. No energy means very little comfort, as many of you reading this know firsthand. Just as soon as the power was restored the global internet went down thanks to an update-gone-awry by cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. It’s been a long while since most of us have seen Microsoft’s infamous “blue screen of death,” but it sure made up for lost time as the internet’s knees buckled, impacting airlines, banks and many others.

It is probably no shock to anyone that the oil industry donated more to the Republican Party than to the Democratic Party during the last presidential election. What might be a surprise, however, is that in the last 75 years, the success of the industry has had very little to do with the political affiliation of the sitting president. That is the message that Matthew Silverman, a geological consultant and the EXPLORER’s own Historical Highlights editor, wants to share at the International Meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy in August in a planned presentation called, “Crude Awakening: The Presidents and the Oil Patch.”

We liken abundance to the countless grains of sands found in various depositional environments – from alluvial fans and fluvial plains to desert dunes, deltas, beaches, lakes and oceans. But, access to abundant sand is decreasing. Sand basins are under various and enormous stresses, including illegal or excessive mining and decreased sediment supply. According to the United Nations Environment Program, every year the world consumes more than 50 billion metric tons of sand. The only other natural resource more consumed is water.

Movies that showcase geology, petroleum geoscience or even fantastical rocks and worlds can be a great public education tool to help spark interest in the field and studies geoscientists love. They appeal to those who might not otherwise have a strong interest in geology and can even serve as a fun teaching tool in classrooms (see sidebar). They also make for a fantastic evening of movie marathon debate: what did a film portray realistically about the field? Where did it stretch some aspects or go completely off course? Whether educational or recreational, many a movie has featured geology and geoscientists over the years.