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     Minutes of Industry Biostratigraphy Coordinators' Group Meeting
     September 19, 1995
     Chevron, Houston, Texas
     
     A meeting of the Industry Biostratigraphy Coordinators' Group (IBCG) 
     was held at Chevron Tower, Houston, Texas on September 19, 1995; in 
     attendance were: Bob Fleisher, Larry Zarra (Chevron), Denise Butler 
     (Pennzoil), Lori Glassgold, Brian O'Neill, Mike Styzen (Shell), Rome 
     Lytton, Sally Zellers (Texaco), Pete McLaughlin, Richard Denne 
     (Exxon), Steve Root, Ron Morin (Mobil), Steve Truax, Mike Dumont 
     (Vastar Resources), Dick White, Rich Lane 
     (Amoco), Garry Jones (Unocal).
     
     The meeting was purposely kept brief to accomodate a meeting of the 
     Gulf Coast Section SEPM Committee on Gulf of Mexico Taxonomic 
     Equivalency chaired by Ed Picou (consultant, retired Shell Oil).  
     Minutes of the GCS SEPM meeting can be found as a separate item on 
     this internet service.
     
     Meeting was called to order by Bob Fleisher, host biostratigrapher.
     
     Brian O'Neill reported that on the evening of November 7th at the 
     upcoming GSA meeting in New Orleans, a room has been reserved at the 
     Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza Hotel for a meeting of the Gulf Coast Section 
     of the SEPM.  Brian suggested the meeting be dedicated to further 
     discussion on the Gulf of Mexico Taxonomic Equivalency Project.
     
     Pete McLaughlin opened a general discussion on the need for oil 
     companies to support promising micropalentology students, and cited 
     the Louisiana State University Center for Palynological Excellence as 
     a shining example of how corporate funds can significantly impact the 
     health of an entire paleontological discipline.  A lively interchange 
     of comments and ideas ensued, all positive on the need for more 
     strategic alliances between biostratigraphy departments in oil 
     companies and academia. Sally Zellers commented on the importance of 
     oil companies offering student internships ("summer hires") to provide 
     a real-world training ground for students.  Several further comments 
     reminded, unfortunately, that as of now the chance for hiring many of 
     these students is low (with Sally Zellers being a recent exception!).  
     Some attendees feared the paucity of jobs may scare off promising 
     students from accepting an internship.  Garry Jones mentioned that 
     Unocal has been working on a proposal for an oil company - university 
     strategic alliance in biostratigraphy and hoped to have more to say 
     about it at the next IBCG meeting.
     
     Rich Lane implored the oil companies to release and standardize their 
     in-house biostratigraphic data (similar to the large volumes of 
     publically available seismic and E-log data) and to compete at the 
     level of how to best analyze and interpret the data. The Group agreed 
     to revisit this topic at the next IBCG meeting.
     
     Rich Lane c/o Jere Lipps (University of California, Berkeley) asked if 
     the oil companies would be interested in attending a proposed workshop 
     on state-of-the-art micropaleontological taxonomy and systematics, 
     cladistics, fossil DNA, and computer methods.  And c/o Norm MacLeod 
     and Steve Culver (Natural History Museum, London), Rich Lane 
     distributed a recent proposal for building a taxonomic and illustrated 
     relational data base for deep-sea benthic foraminifera.  Rich also 
     announced the distribution of the Final Circular on the 1996 North 
     American Paleo Convention in Washington D.C. and that the IBCG group 
     will be hosting two symposia:  Biologic Signature of Sequence 
     Stratigraphic Architecture and Quantitative Biostratigraphic 
     Techniques.
     
     Bob Fleisher noted that four contibutions for the biostratigraphy 
     chapter in the upcoming AAPG Handbook of Petroleum Methods still need 
     to be handed in to the editor.
     
     The next meeting of the IBCG was scheduled for Tuesday, October 31st 
     at Exxon in Houston (costumes required).  Preliminary agenda items 
     include:  
     
     Follow up on Jere Lipps' proposal for taxonomy workshop (Rich Lane).
     Follow up on Norm MacLeod and Steve Culver proposal for a relational 
     taxonomic data base (Rich Lane).
     Update on future of Paleo Conference (1997?) (Rich Lane, Brian 
     O'Neill).
     Follow up on idea of releasing in-house biostratigraphic data (Rich 
     Lane)
     Unocal proposal for oil company - university strategic alliance (Garry 
     Jones, Anthony Gary).
     
     Respectfully submitted,
     
     Garry Jones
     Unocal
     Lafayette, Louisiana