Kurt Marfurt reflects on his career and the recent award of SEG's highest honor, the Maurice Ewing Medal. In this engaging conversation with host Andrew Geary, Kurt shares his reaction to learning about receiving the Maurice Ewing Medal. He offers his major takeaways from various career stops along his path and how his volunteer roles at the SEG advanced his career. Kurt provides wisdom on what's changed and hasn't changed in building a successful geophysical career and what he's most proud...

Philip Ringrose discusses his upcoming Distinguished Instructor Short Course, "Storage of Carbon Dioxide in Saline Aquifers – Building confidence by forecasting and monitoring." Interest in carbon capture and storage (CCS) is growing rapidly as a crucial part of global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. In this conversation with host Andrew Geary, Philip reviews the science and technology underpinning CO2 storage in deep saline aquifer formations using insights...

Paolo Dell'Aversana highlights his article in The Leading Edge, discussing a dual-sensory approach to understanding seismic. In a first for this podcast, host Andrew Geary and Paolo discuss music's role in interpreting seismic. Based on concepts well-established in cognitive sciences, Paolo introduces the idea of expanded imaging in geophysics, using a dual-sensory (audiovisual) perception of a data set. In this episode, Paolo explains the basic principles of multimodal seismic data analysis...

Sara Gentilini, founder of GEOfood, discusses how her organization supports the sustainable development of local communities and helps increase achievement towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals. GEOfood is an initiative for communities and environmentally friendly food enterprises in UNESCO Global Geoparks territories. This unique partnership with GEOfood and Global Geoparks enables local traditions and ancient knowledge to be connected with the geological heritage that characterizes...

Felix J. Herrmann highlights the July 2023 special section in The Leading Edge - digitalization in energy. In this episode with host Andrew Geary, Felix discusses his open-access article, "Learned multiphysics inversion with differentiable programming and machine learning." He shares why the future of the oil and gas industry depends on the democratization of technology design. He provides insights into why modernizing wave-equation inversion frameworks is important to geophysics and shares...

Fabien Allo highlights his award-winning article, "Characterization of a carbonate geothermal reservoir using rock-physics-guided deep neural networks." In this episode with host Andrew Geary, Fabien shares the potential of deep neural networks (DNNs) in integrating seismic data for reservoir characterization. He explains why DNNs have yet to be widely utilized in the energy industry and why utilizing a training set was key to this study. Fabien also details why they did not include any...

Aria Abubakar and Wenyi Hu, co-chair and vice-chair of the IMAGE Technical Program Committee, respectively, discuss the reasons for attending IMAGE '23. The third annual International Meeting for Applied Geoscience & Energy (IMAGE) will bring geoscientists from around the world from 28 August to 1 September at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas. IMAGE is the largest technical program in the event's history. IMAGE will have 168 oral and 110 poster sessions over three...

Lia Martinez shares the critical skills necessary to network successfully. In this conversation with host Andrew Geary, Lia offers tips and best practices to fully utilize networking to further your career and technical skills. She explains why seven follow-ups (or touches) is the magic number, the importance of establishing credibility early, and how to use note-taking to your advantage. She outlines the unique ways that both introverts and extroverts struggle with networking (and how to...

Anja Klotzsche discusses her Near-Surface Global Lecture, "Unlocking the potential of GPR for subsurface characterization by using full-waveform inversion." The heterogeneous near-surface consists of the complex interactions between rock, soil, water, air, and living organisms, which determine the availability of life-sustaining resources such as water. This environment has been increasingly exploited for human needs, such as water supply, to store our waste and food production. To assess...

As the size and complexity of data soars exponentially, machine learning (ML) has gained prominence in applications in geoscience and related fields. ML-powered technology increasingly rivals or surpasses human performance and fuels a large range of leading-edge research. In this conversation with host Andrew Geary, mathematician Herman Jaramillo discusses his new book, Machine Learning for Science and Engineering Volume One: Fundamentals. This book teaches the underlying mathematics,...

Öz Yilmaz returns to the podcast to highlight his award-winning article, "A reality check on full-wave inversion applied to land seismic data for near-surface modeling." In this conversation with host Andrew Geary, Öz assesses the accuracy of full-wave inversion applied to land seismic data for near-surface modeling. He elaborates on his definition of near-surface and explains why he believes full-wave inversion failed to yield an accurate near-surface model. Öz also describes how the...

Seismic Soundoff has featured some of the most well-known geoscientists, authors, and teachers for the past seven years. And since episode 72, host Andrew Geary has asked his guests, "What is one piece of advice you would offer someone that would like to succeed in this field?" The insight and experience across the 186 episodes are vast. To help collect some of this wisdom into one episode, we're excited to present an updated episode for some of our favorite answers to this closing...

Critical mineral exploration will play a key role in human development and progress. The April 2023 special section of The Leading Edge focuses on the issue of critical minerals from the perspective of recent progress in mining exploration and anticipated future needs as the global energy economy transitions to higher use of, and reliance on, renewables. In this conversation with host Andrew Geary, Dr. Alan Jones defines critical minerals and how and why each country defines them...

SEG President Ken Tubman discusses the future outlook of SEG and applied geophysics. In this conversation with host Andrew Geary, Ken provides the latest information on the ongoing SEG transformation. He outlines how SEG could allow greater experimentation, the pros and cons of its current governance structure, and how members can best contribute to SEG's future. Ken shares some risks for SEG's transformation and why building a successful future for SEG matters to him. This episode not only...

Dr. Elikplim Abla Dzikunoo and Abdul Rashid Seidu discuss their Geoscientists without Borders project, "Provision of potable water to communities in northeastern Ghana." This GWB project will directly help the inhabitants of two communities (Zagsliari and Salinwia) located within the Nasia river basin in the West Mamprusi district – Northeastern region of Ghana. In Zagsliari, men, women, and children will all benefit from potable water. Children will especially benefit as the current water...

Yogaani Bhatia, SEG's Managing Director for International Operations, discusses the value of the SEG regional offices as SEG celebrates over ten years of the Middle East regional office. In this conversation with host Andrew Geary, Yogaani describes the work and vision for the SEG regional offices. She explains how geophysics is changing in the Middle East and highlights the similarities and differences between geophysics in the Middle East and China. Yogaani also shares what she's most...

Dr. Cyril D. Boateng discusses his SEG Field Camp, "Investigating the slave trade in South Eastern Ghana using integrated geophysical techniques." Recently, there has been renewed interest in connecting Africans in the diaspora to their ancestral lands. In this context, significant focus has been placed on research which enhances an understanding of the circumstances of enslaved people during the days of enslavement. A lesser-known and often excluded slavery focus point is the South Eastern...

Roman Pevzner discusses his Honorary Lecture, "Surface and borehole seismic monitoring of CO2 geological storage." Geological carbon capture and storage (CCS) or sequestration is a critical component of CO2 emission reduction, which aims to alleviate global climate change. Geological carbon storage always requires a subsurface monitoring program, and seismic methods play an important role. In this conversation with host Andrew Geary, Roman explains why a subsurface monitoring program is...

SEG Scholarships encourage the study of geophysics and related geosciences in universities worldwide. Due to the generosity of donors, the SEG offers a range of different scholarship opportunities to students all over the globe. In this special episode, we feature two scholarship recipients and the founder of a new Scholarship Program. Host Andrew Geary speaks first with Manika Prasad. Manika is a Colorado School of Mines professor passionate about students and diversity within the...

Government policies, incentives, and funding directly impact gains in energy efficiency and energy independence. In this conversation with host Andrew Geary, Diana Sineva and Stephen Brown highlight recent policy changes in the United States and how it impacts the world and the oil and gas sector. In this unique conversation, Diana and Stephen explain the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and why it's important to incentivize and fund energy efficiency policies. They offer a distinctive...

Technological advancements in geophysical sensors and sensor platforms over the past decade have given rise to the rapidly growing and innovative field of drone-based geophysics. As improvements in reliability, payload capacity, coverage capability, resolution, data quality, cost, and personnel safety continue to be realized, the widespread application of drone geophysics marks an exciting new era of innovation in near-surface geophysics. In this conversation with host Andrew Geary, Dr....

What sets the seismic method apart from other geophysical exploration methods is its ability to deliver three-dimensional high-resolution images of the subsurface. Ramesh (Neelsh) Neelamani traces the history of the seismic method to showcase recent breakthroughs and future advancements. Neelsh is currently ExxonMobil Senior Principal Geophysics. In this conversation with host Andrew Geary, Neelsh shares the insights he gained tracing the history of seismic resolution. He also spotlights the...

Boris Gurevich provides an insider's perspective on the value of expanding your knowledge and awareness of the wide-ranging discipline of geophysics. Boris currently serves as Chair of the Distinguished Lecture Committee at the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. In this conversation with host Andrew Geary, Boris shares the benefits and primary function of SEG's educational lectures. And there's a strong chance the primary function differs from what you think! Boris provides a helpful...

The seismic data set is a fundamental requirement for producing oil and gas fields. Reservoir modeling utilizing seismic interpretations drove insights into reservoir quality and performance, helping to understand the communication between reservoir units and wells, particularly in fields with many wells. Over time, technological advancements led to a reduction in the cost of reservoir modeling, while increased acquisition, processing, and utility of seismic data provided the means to drive...

Leo Eisner discusses his Honorary Lecture, "Mapping pore pressure with beach balls." The stress field of the Earth's crust has been studied for many decades as a part of seismology and geomechanics. Traditional stress inversion methods utilize focal mechanisms of earthquakes as this is typically the only data available at a regional scale and lower crust. With earthquake mechanisms, it's possible to reconstruct principal stress directions and a ratio of principal stress magnitudes but not...