Editorial

The response to the Treasurer ‘s Report at the AGM in May was quite astounding; I lost count of the number of people who came up with ways of spending the cash in the current account. So when the President was looking for someone to take the load off his shoulders and write an editorial for the Newsletter I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to let the membership know about some of the ways in which we will disburse about £100,000.00 this year.
The biggest donation this year will be to the Jurassic Marine Life Museum; curator Steve Etches has built up this amazing collection over his lifetime and is at present stored in his garage. The money PESGB are donating will allow the collection to be displayed under controlled conditions to preserve the unique material.
Another highly worthy organisation we are continuing to support is the Earth Sciences Teachers’ Association (ESTA). The aim of the Association is to advance education by encouraging and supporting the teaching of Earth sciences at all levels, whether as a single subject such as Geology or as part of Science or Geography or other courses. They are particularly keen to welcome as members, teachers who have no formal Earth science training but deliver an Earth science component in the National Curriculum. The money we have donated will contribute to their annual course and conference in Bath in September along with developing their website.
Both of the previous donations carryon from 2005, but the Virtual Seismic Atlas project at Leeds University is a whole new idea, or almost so ‘ Do you remember the Bally Seismic Atlas of the 1980s? Its huge pages of black and white 2D seismic images that seismic interpreters would pore over to come up with analogues for their interpretations, are to be replaced by a web-enable database with access for the whole seismic community to share raw and interpreted data. The team at Leeds will use the PESGB funds to recruit a research student for two years to start the meta-tagging of the data that has already been donated. The lucky researcher will also have the opportunity to work towards a Master’s Degree while engaged on the project. The VSA will be built upon the template of BHP-Billiton ‘s “get-knowledge” data management/knowledge transfer system; this software tool has been provided free . The preliminary content of the VSA is being developed with Veritas DGC who is providing sample 2D and 3D data from diverse settings, including the UKCS. It is hoped that this will promote the release of data/interpretations from other owners as the seismic community start to grow their own site. It is intended that the project will enhance collaboration between university-based research and oil and gas industry together with the general public, thus fulfilling one of the maincharitable aims of the Society.