W-3: Exploiting New Technologies for Research and Careers in Geoscience: Past, Present and Future

SEG 2012 Annual Meeting Technical Program

Date: Thursday, 8 November 2012
Time: 1:30 pm – 5:00 pm
Location: Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Room: Mandalay Bay Ballroom D
Organizers: Roderick Perez (student), Joan Marie Blanco Gonzalez (student), Craig Hyslop (student), Chris Krohn, and Kelly Wrobel
Through the support of the SEG University and Student Programs and the SEG Research Committee
 

Description
 

This workshop will target the "new" generation of geophysicists and will explore the evolutionary process – where we are coming from, where we are, and where we need to go in order to pull together in the same direction. The workshop will emphasize student participation and will explore how students can have a successful career in geophysics, while exploiting opportunities for use of new technologies in research.  Members of research consortiums are invited to share their experiences.  In addition, we plan to discuss the availability and use of free-open source software.

One of the goals of this workshop will be to create a database of enthusiastic and proactive geophysicist students that would like to work together to help other students using new communicational technologies, and to create a student community which will generate products, such as: teleconferences, wiki-SEG, periodical meetings, tutorial videos, etc. which will be beneficial for everyone.

During the past years, oil and gas companies have reduced their research departments moving the balance toward the academia with increased reliance on consortia. This collaboration is greatly accelerating progress, and the participation of a new generation of geophysicist is fundamental. At the same time, advances in computer systems have exploded. Programming capabilities are becoming "democratized", where by a number of geophysicists are able to write application code in MatLab, C, C#, C+ or any other language and share it with many others via the Internet.  In less than 30 years, we have moved light years away from punching cards with similar changes in careers in geophysics.