The CSEG Symposium is a premium event that the Society organizes every year. This year it was held on 6th April, 2017. Being organized since 2012, this one-day event is very popular as it attracts case study talks. Many geophysicists working at oil and gas companies are not at liberty of presenting their work at conventions or workshops as it gets published in the form of expanded abstracts, or the presentations are shared with viewers. Over the years the CSEG Symposium committees have always encouraged such geophysicists to present their work, by not publishing it in any form. Besides, the speakers are selected for the event by invitation only.
One of the highlights of the CSEG Symposium is to honour one or more notable CSEG members who have contributed significantly to geophysics and have a good standing in our industry. The CSEG Symposium is an industry event and the theme each year is also selected to focus on the work of the honouree(s), so that the talks presented are related to the work of the honouree(s). The honourees for the inaugural 2012 CSEG Symposium were Dan Hampson and Brian Russell, and for the subsequent years Bill Goodway (2013), John Boyd (2014), David Gray (2015), Bill Nickerson (2016) were honoured. For this year the CSEG Symposium honouree happened to be me, and the theme selected for the Symposium was ‘Creative Measures’.
Nine companies including Apache, Arcis Seismic Solutions/TGS, CSEG Foundation, Divestco, Geomodeling, Geo-X, Jupiter Resources, Repsol and WesternGeco provided sponsorship for the event. Considering the difficult times that our industry has been going through, the 2017 CSEG Symposium organizational committee worked hard at putting up a good show. They need to be commended for it.
The speakers selected for this year along with the topic they addressed are as follows (given in the order they presented):
- David Monk: BroadBand onshore: a case study.
- Peter Vermeulen: Using buried receivers for multicomponent, time-lapse heavy oil imaging.
- John Castagna: Fault Detection Using Principal Component Analysis of Seismic Attributes in the Bakken Formation, Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA.
- Brian Russell: Extended poroelastic impedance with applications to an Alberta gas sand.
- Fred Hilterman: Understanding stratigraphic filtering effects on interpretation.
- Kurt Marfurt: Correlating rate of penetration and bit trips to 3D surface seismic data in the Mississippi Lime Play.
- Neda Boroumand: Microseismic interpretation of hydraulic fractures through numerical modeling and data integration: strain residual analysis.
- Marco Perez: Understanding qualitative and quantitative interpretation and the space in between.
The invited luncheon speaker was Suzanne West who delivered a talk on ‘Embracing Change – A New Normal is Coming’.
Another highlight of the CSEG Symposium each year is that the Society’s Annual Awards distribution ceremony is held during the lunch hour, where the members with outstanding achievements are honoured.
Besides the talks, a tribute is given to the honouree as a sign of respect and admiration for his/her accomplishments. Such tributes are useful for the upcoming geoscientists so that they get to know and learn from the professional lives of the honourees. The tribute this year was given by my good friend, Kurt Marfurt.
The photographs appended below help gauge through the day’s proceedings. I must gratefully acknowledge that all the appended photographs were taken and provided by my good friend Penny Colton.
As I said in my acceptance address at the end of the day, it was one of the finest days of my professional life, and I wish to thank the speakers and the Symposium Committee members for making it so special and memorable.
Hereunder are some photos from the day-long event.