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Biostratigraphy Section / GP3 Rm 311
Phone (281) 423-5988 / FAX 423-5896
INDUSTRY BIOSTRATIGRAPHY COMMUNICATION MEETING
Exxon Exploration Company, Houston, Texas
Friday, November 22, 1996
Minutes
The meeting was convened at approximately 10:00 am.
In attendance were: Denise Butler (Pennzoil), Michael Dumont (Vastar),
Anthony Gary (University of Utah), Lori Glassgold (Shell), Rich Lane (Amoco),
Pete McLaughlin (Exxon), Rashel Rosen (Excalibur), Steve Truax (Vastar), Ron
Waszczak (Conoco).
ITEM 1: Next Meeting Date.
Lori Glassgold will host the next meeting on Friday, 1/17/97 at Shell on
Dairy Ashford -more details as date approaches.
ITEM 2: Association of these meetings with a professional Society.
McLaughlin proposed that a move towards formalizing this series of meetings
be made in 1997. This idea was discussed relative to the vision of the
regular participants -- sharing issues and ideas on how to operate within our
large company environments. Suggestions include:
o Affiliating with GCS-SEPM as a committee or working group.
o Affiliating with other societies besides GCS-SEPM.
o Suggesting a society sponsor a biostrat service provider fair at a
lunch bunch meeting of an IBCG meeting--a good idea for cross
fertilization.
o Helping promote the Houston paleo lunch bunch - better publicity,
high attendance keeping cross-links between oil company and
consulting biostratigraphers-this group could sponsor some of the
lunch get togethers.
ITEM 3: Gulf of Mexico Biostratigraphic Equivalency Project update
Rashel Rosen of Excalibur (Houston) presented an update on the status of
this project.
o Chronostratigraphic chart input has been coordinated by Garry Jones,
of Unocal and undertaken by Dr. James Ogg of Purdue.
o Calcareous Nannofossils The Discoaster group and the Spenolithus
group have been the focus of discussions. The working group has
identified concepts for the species and made illustrations of key
features. They have also established an internet server with the
latest information on their efforts. The group met several times in
New Orleans and will have a meeting in December in Houston to make
sure Houston-based biostratigraphers are included.
o Foraminifera The foram group's efforts are being coordinated by Ed
Picou of New Orleans, with significant additional effort by Rashel
Rosen of Houston. Rosen hosted the first meeting in July at her
office (Excalibur) for the Plio-Pleistocene working group. A second
meeting was held in September that included both a Miocene-Oligocene
group and the Pliocene-Pleistocene group. There were 11 attendees (3
oil company, 8 consultants). The effort has focused on establishing,
for each zone, the marker species, "flags" and associated taxa. The
next foram meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 12 in Houston at
Excalibur. A standard format (electronic vs. paper) for the project
results is also being discussed, and ideas on how to distribute
(subscriptions? CD-rom?).
ITEM 4: SWOT analysis
Ron Waszczak led this discussion, revisiting the itemized results that the
group assembled back in 1992:
o Strength/Weaknesses -- which have we acted well on, and which not?
Which developmental gaps do we own that need remedy?
o Opportunities/Threats -- There have been sweeping changes since 1992
in industry biostratigraphy, reconfiguring paleo organizations and
operating styles. What opportunities and threats have changed? For
example: is 3D seismic a substitute or an opportunity for paleo? Is
sequence stratigraphy?
Waszczak suggested we should identify the SWOTs we think as most important
and build on them. One question posed was -- are there any recent or pending
"landmark advances" in the way we use biostratigraphy in the industry?
Another -- are we just trying to find a new ways to do the same old job
(efficiencies) when what we may need to do is find new ways to approach the
work (effectiveness)?
A discussion of some of the challenges in industry biostratigraphy followed
-- how to manage work demands; improves coordination and interaction between
consultants and company biostratigraphers; initiate and keep technology
advances moving along. One idea along these lines proposed by Waszczak: an
industry/academia allied project, e.g. "Biofacies Responses in Sequence-Keyed
Clastic Depositional Systems". How can biostratigraphy groups most readily
support such projects? Specific funding for micropaleo questions, or as part
of interdisciplinary projects that, in many companies, are already funded by
technology groups outside of paleo.
ITEM 5: TACS update
Tony Gary reviewed progress on the Technical Alliance for Computational
Stratigraphy (TACS). TACS would be an alliance of oil companies, software
developers, and academic researchers run by the Center for Industrial Imaging
at the University of Utah. The goal is to develop biostratigraphic
workstation capabilities to maximize the quality and quantity of
biostratigraphic information for multidisciplinary studies.
Gary reported that the proposal for alliance is being bound and sent from
the University of Utah to potential members. He also reported he has spoken
with a number of other oil company biostratigraphers as well as
biostratigraphic software programmers in the last few months about being able
to interact with the major biostratigraphic and geological software tools in
use. The by-laws in this proposal include membership provisions and costs --
Tony Gary can be contacted for details. There will be a Question and Answer
meeting at Unocal on the proposal at a later date.
ITEM 6: Orphaned Collections
Rich Lane noted that a meeting of interested parties on this issue was held
just before the GSA meeting in Denver, supported and partially funded by NSF.
He handed out a set of "Resolutions" developed at this meeting. He reported
that various ideas were discussed for how to house such collections. One idea
would be to house them (temporarily or permanently) at old military
facilities. One issue is that an endowment would be needed to fund such an
operation, given the costs of maintaining an inventory of the collection,
climate control, etc.
Dumont wondered if funding might be accomplished by adding a few dollars
for every well to go to government to fund support of such a facility. Lane
added that the University of California-Berkeley Museum of Paleontology is
keeping a list on-line called ICAL where the names of collections at risk can
be put. Lane proposed scheduling an April 5 meeting on this subject before
the AAPG convention in Dallas.
The meeting was adjourned at approximately 3:00 pm.
Please feel free to contact me at pete.mclaughlin@exxon.sprint.com
with any questions.
Respectfully submitted by:
Pete McLaughlin
7 January, 1997
Regards, Pete
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Peter P. McLaughlin, Jr. / Exxon Exploration Company
Technology Department / P.O. Box 4778 / Houston, TX 77210-4778
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