Aurora – The magnificent northern lights

Ioannis Daglis and Syun-Ichi Akasofu

…The aurora is beautiful, spectacular, splendid, and appears quite frequently – almost nightly in the polar sky. Appearing in the form of majestic, colourful, irregular lights in the night sky, the aurora has a variety of shapes, colours, and structures, and continuously changes in time. Everybody who has seen the…

Making the Circle Stronger: A Geoscientist’s Perspective of the 2004 APEGGA Annual Conference Professional Development Seminars

Tom Sneddon

…The following is a geoscientist’s summary of the multi-discipline professional development sessions offered at the APEGGA Annual Conference in Edmonton in April 2004. (The 2005 Conference will be in Calgary). Over 220 people attended the six different 2-day streams of sessions – under the common theme “Making the Circle Stronger”.…

Executive Message

…“On Volunteers” Recently, an associate asked me, “Are you having fun yet?” in my role as Vice President of the CSEG for the 2004/2005 year. I reflect back to the start of the term, some 6 odd months ago, and can’t believe that the time has gone by so quickly.…

CAGC Column

…The smell of snow is in the air. A minority federal government exists here in Canada. The Alberta provincial deficit will be paid off very shortly. Globally the news is about war and oil - $50 a barrel of oil and Kyoto is looming. Did you catch the CBC documentary…

Expert Answers

…Question Multidisciplinary integrated reservoir characterization combines geology, geophysics, petrophysics, reservoir/production engineering and numerical simulation (i.e. use the borehole and seismic data, both static and dynamic) in an attempt to better understand reservoirs and get improved reservoir management and productivity gains. The ultimate goal of such a process is to predict…

Seismic Gourmet

…Mt. Everest’s Kitchen (Fine Nepalese Cuisine) In case you haven't figured it out yet the general intent that I started out with in writing this column was to find interesting restaurants that served great food that maybe not everyone had heard about. I think that in Mt. Everest's Kitchen I…

Tracing the Industry

…Whoops… The correct cell phone number for Kelly Zamisski of Sourcex Geophysical Corporation is 828-3077. On the move... Steve Marshall recently began work in West Alberta for CNRL as a senior geophysicist. Steve’s phone number is 260-6093 with email steve.marshall@cnrl.com. Jolene Goring is now at Apache Canada Ltd. as a…

Grapevine

…WiSE Golf Tournament a Big Success The 4th Annual WiSE (Women in Seismic) Golf Tournament, which was held on Wednesday, August 18th, 2004 at Lakeside Greens Golf & Country Club, was a huge success this year with a turnout of 128 players. The tournament, which was previously known as the…

Proceedings of the 2004 CSEG Convention Workshops

Satinder Chopra / Helen Isaac / Jason Noble / Oliver Kuhn

…Workshop on Seismic Attributes Compiled by Satinder Chopra Chairpersons: Brian Russell & Eric Andersen Introduction by Session Chair Seismic Waveform Classification: Techniques and Examples Eric Andersen and John Boyd Seismic attribute analysis with well to seismic validation Eileen Huang Reconnaissance of geological prospectivity and reservoir characterization using multiple seismic attributes…

Foamy oil and wormhole footprints in heavy oil cold production reservoirs

Sandy Chen, Larry Lines, Patrick Daley

…Abstract Simultaneous extraction of oil and sand during the cold production of heavy oil generates high porosity channels termed “wormholes”. The development of wormholes causes reservoir pressure to fall below the bubble point, resulting in dissolved-gas coming out of solution to form foamy oil. Amplitude anomalies in the vicinity of…

Bill Abriel

An Interview with Bill Abriel

…Let’s begin by asking you about your educational background and your work experience. Certainly. I was at Penn State as an undergraduate in the Geo Sciences in the Geophysics Division. Then I went to Graduate School and got a scholarship from NASA. So at Penn State University I received a…

CAGC Column

…Earlier this year we had a chance to submit a paper to the BC Government on their One Reg for Oil and Gas Initiative. We worked in coordination with the CAPP GEO group and in particular Lucy Hart made a tremendous contribution through her leadership in bringing together the paper.…

Expert Opinions

…Question Mergers and takeovers in our industry and the service sector have become increasingly common in the last decade. A significant emerging trend is that a typical oil industry career is no longer joining a large company for life, but that individuals should manage their own careers and be willing…

The Winds of Change: Anisotropic Rocks – Their Preferred Direction of Fluid Flow and Their Associated Seismic Signatures

Heloise B. Lynn

…The Context of our Community All of us interact in the context of our community. SEG and AAPG have played major positive roles in the community wherein I have worked for the last 30 years. These two societies invited me to speak upon a topic of my choice, for the…

A brief review of Remote Sensing

Compiled by Helen Isaac

…Remote sensing is the science of acquiring, processing and interpreting data about the Earth's surface that is recorded by sensors on satellites or aircraft. Geoscience applications of remote sensing include the mapping of surficial deposits/bedrock, lithology, structures and structural trends, sedimentation and geohazards, sand and gravel exploration/ exploitation, mineral and…

Earthquakes of the Charlevoix Seismic Zone, Québec

Maurice Lamontagne, Mario Beauchemin, Thierry Toutin

…Earthquakes represent a significant natural hazard. Canada is no exception; damaging earthquakes have occurred historically and the seismic hazard is non-negligible in many urban areas. Fortunately, mitigation measures, such as upgrading and enforcing building codes, make structures more resistant to earthquake strong ground motions. The seismic provisions of the National…

Where the Hell is that Well?

Stephen M. Thomas

…Introduction Mixing of data referenced to NAD83 with data referenced to NAD27 may result in positional errors of up to 250 metres that could result in dry holes. NAD27 has served the oil and gas industry very well for the last 80 years and it is still the survey reference…

Expert Answers

…Question Distinguishing “fizz water” and “commercial gas” saturations and locating “heavy oil sand units” with surface seismic and borehole data are two challenging problems for us today. How are we meeting these challenges? Answer 1 Theoretically, it’s nearly impossible to distinguish “fizz water sand units” from “commercial gas sand units”,…

Seismic Gourmet

…Cilantro (South Western California Cuisine) Think back to August of 1988, the Olympics were fading into memory and Calgary was just beginning to be discovered by the world. New restaurants were opening expanding the styles of food available to the local Calgarians and visitors. Now fast forward to August 2004…

Book Review

…Well Seismic Surveying by Jean-Luc Mari and Francoise Coppens, ISBN 2-7108-0776-9, Institute Francais du Petrole Publications, 2003, 238 pp. $90.00 USD. This book represents 20 years of VSP progress and development at the Institute Francais du Petrole. This volume is an update of their 1991 book entitled Seismic Well Surveying.…