10 I served this past fall as the Geology PI on the successful UTeach proposal, which was funded this past fall for $1.4 million for five years. The UTeach program is a joint project between the Colleges of Education and Arts and Sciences. The program will develop teachers in the STEM fields, including geosciences, who are better prepared for the classroom. The students will receive a degree in their chosen science or math field along with a teaching certificate. The aim is to improve the quality and quantity of STEM teachers for Oklahoma schools. Dr. Michael Grammer It has been a very busy and rewarding year here in the School of Geology. The majority of my research lab is now in place with our research microscopes, photographic capability, computers, etc. already in, and an Ar-beam micro-polisher to be added in the near future. I have 5 active graduate students (1 Ph.D. and 4 M.S.) working with me, plus 2 undergraduates, all working on various aspects of carbonate sedimentology and reservoir characterization. Next year looks like another strong crop of students as I have received to date more than 70 queries from potential M.S. and Ph.D. students from numerous very strong programs both here in the U.S. and from around the world, about joining our group for Fall of 2014. My graduate students and I continue to be heavily involved with work related to the Mississippian Carbonates Industrial Consortium (more detail on the Miss Consortium elsewhere in the newsletter). Beth Vanden Berg (Ph.D. student) is testing the relationship between pore type and permeability in micro- to nano-scale pores using ultra high resolution Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (this is where the ion-beam polisher will come into play). Beth’s main goal is to test whether the relationship between porosity, permeability and sonic velocity response can be used to help predict permeability in carbonates from wireline logs and ultimately shed new insight into high resolution seismic interpretation. Buddy Price and Miranda Childress (M.S. students) are both working outcrop sections, utilizing a combination of high density vertical and lateral stratigraphic analysis for facies stacking patterns and high frequency sequence stratigraphic interpretation along with high resolution Gigapan imagery to map out bed geometry. The Gigapan allows us to measure beds on the cm scale from multi-gigabyte photographic images that have been “stitched” together – no more of the taping individual photos together to try and get a panorama that many of you will remember. On one of our outcrops, you can actually see ripple cross lamination from over 200 meters away with this technology! Stephanie LeBlanc and new student Taylor Thompson (both M.S. students) are focusing on subsurface data sets. Stephanie is working on developing a 4th and 5th order sequence stratigraphic hierarchy (i.e. below biostratigraphic resolution) and trying to develop a reservoir scale model for reservoir flow units and seals. Taylor is evaluating the distribution of fractures in these rocks and determining if fracture density is related to either facies type and/or sequence stratigraphic positioning. In June, I took 12 students on a week-long field seminar looking at modern and recent carbonates in Florida and the Bahamas, supported in part by funding from the College of Arts and Sciences. The highlight of the trip was the 4.5 days we spent on the R/V Coral Reef II, an 80 foot research vessel owned by the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. The R/V CRII is based in Miami and makes for an outstanding platform from which to study modern carbonates in the Bahamas with excellent snorkeling and small boat facilities. We took the CRII from Miami to Bimini, visited the ooid shoal bars south of Bimini and the Cat Cays and evaluated the formation of carbonate grains, effects of wind and tidal currents and resulting sedimentary structures then related our findings to what a potential reservoir might look like in the subsurface. This approach was continued as we examined modern tidal flats on the west side of Andros Island, followed by numerous stops in the Joulters Cays ooid sand complex as well as patch and barrier reefs. Joulters is an outstanding place to examine field scale variability in carbonate sand bodies. It is a 400 km2 complex of tidal channels, tidal passes, subtidal bars, islands, dunes etc. that provides the students a chance to see and understand many of the common features associated with carbonate sand plays in the subsurface. After returning to Miami, we then looked at Pleistocene equivalents of the ooid sands and reef deposits in Miami and the Florida Keys. This would be a great “alumni”; trip if any of you are ever interested. Just let me know. In addition to working on the Mississippian project with my students and faculty colleagues and taking trips to the Bahamas, I taught courses in Earth History/Historical Geology, a graduate and senior undergraduate course in Carbonate Depositional Systems and am currently teaching a graduate course in Integrated Carbonate Reservoir Characterization. I also taught two one week short courses in carbonate reservoir characterization for Petroskills, one in Muscat, Oman for PDO and the other in London with participants from 10 different locations around the world. I feel this is a great way to get the word out on what is happening here at OSU and has led to a number of student applications who are coming from companies in the Middle East and Europe. In June of this year I will be running a Paradox Basin trip for Chevron and Petroskills, and then doing other reservoir characterization courses in London as well as possibly in Calgary this summer. Other news of note: Two of my former MS students won Best Poster Awards for their presentations (in the Professional Sessions) at meetings this year. Seth Workman for his work on the Eagleford at the Eastern Section AAPG, and Jason Asmus for his work on the Bone Springs in the Permian Basin that we presented at the GCAGS meeting in New Orleans. Both Jason and Seth have accepted full time employment with EOG Resources, in Midland and Tyler respectively. We continue to get a lot of interest from several petroleum companies for the type we are doing, and I hope that our group is successfully integrating with and adding to the overall expertise of the School. As an example, my current students have either already done (at least one) internship or will be doing internships this summer. Companies they are working with include ExxonMobil, Chesapeake, Devon, Occidental and Linn Energy. I have also been talking with several colleagues here in the BPSoG about additional consortia ideas, so keep a look out for next year. Lastly, after a trip orchestrated by the OSU foundation (Lisa Capone and Lauren Kidd) to visit alums in Houston this past Fall, we were able to obtain a $500K submarine AUV data set from the Gulf of Mexico for research and teaching purposes (many thanks to Gary Humphrey and Dan McConnell of Fugro for helping us with this donation from a BP consortium). As always, if you are visiting OSU and Stillwater, please stop by if you have a few minutes. I would love to meet ore alumni
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