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ASEG Newsletter | Issue 28 | July 2020

Dear Members,

In the July Newsletter you will find information on:

Working with Your Inner Critic - Virtual Workshop
AGC Webinar - IOCG Deposits: Definition, Nature, Tectonic Setting and Magmatic-Hydrothermal Origin
New dates for EAGE Near Surface Gesocience & Engineering Meeting
Last chance - WA Student Awards Open
New Dates for AEGC 2021
ASEG YouTube

And of course, our regular articles.

For updates on upcoming webinars, events and interesting articles follow ASEG on LinkedIn, twitter and facebook.


Working with Your Inner Critic - Virtual Workshop

Wed 12 August, 12.30-2.30pm AEST (12-2.00pm ACST, 10.30am-12.30pm AWST)

The ASEG are running their first Professional Development workshop - Working with Your Inner Critic, run by the Happiness Concierge. This workshop is free for members, and $25 for non-members. To secure your spot, register today

Synopsis - Have you felt like a 'fake' and some point in your career? Have you questioned why people should listen to you when presenting? Have you worried you may be 'found out'? Or, has a nagging voice in your head told you that it was 'luck' which awarded you the position you are in now? Well, you're not alone. Up to 70% of people are likely to experience impostor like symptoms in some capacity in our careers. In this practical and interactive session, learn the four critical elements to working with your Inner Critic, identify how to work collaboratively with limiting beliefs which may also limit your success; and learn practical tactics you can implement to influence your next steps.

Check out this 1 minute video by course presenter Nicole Hatherly to find out what to expect.


AGC Webinar - IOCG Deposits: Definition, Nature, Tectonic Setting and Magmatic-Hydrothermal Origin

Professor David Groves, recipient of AGC’s National Geoscience Champion Award in 2018, will present a webinar on Tuesday 11 August at 5pm AWST.

Participants will gain an insight into the iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) group of deposits, discussing the temporal distribution and tectonic environments of the various subtypes. The webinar is hosted by AusIMM and AGC and is free for members of an AGC Society (ASEG). To register visit the AusIMM events page.


Call for Abstracts

The first Virtual Australian Earth Sciences Convention 'Core to Cosmos', will occur on the 9-12 February, 2021.

Call for abstracts are open until 28 September 2020. For further information visit the AESC Website.


New dates for EAGE Near Surface Gesocience & Engineering Meeting

The 3rd Asia Pacific Meeting on Near Surface Geoscience and Engineering Conference has new dates. The conference will take place 2-4 November 2020 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Learn more about the event on the website.


Last chance - WA Student Awards Open

Invitations for submission are extended to West Australian Undergraduate (second year or higher) and Post-Graduate Geophysics students for the 2020 student awards. To be considered for an Award submit a completed Application Form, with requested supporting documentation, via email to wasecretary@aseg.org.au. Applications Close 31 August 2020

Applicants will be notified of the outcome of the Awards. The students will then receive their awards at an ASEG WA tech night in 2020. Honours and post-graduate level award recipients may be requested to give a public presentation on their research at a technical or student night held by the Society. This is an excellent opportunity for students wishing to present their research at AEGC!


New Dates for AEGC 2021

The AEGC 2021 is postponed due to current situations caused by COVID 19. The organising committee has released the new dates for AEGC 2021: 15 - 20 September 2021. We look forward to catching up with you then. For more information, see the website.


ASEG YouTube

All our ASEG Webinars are available on the ASEG Website and ASEG Youtube. Subscribe to the ASEG YouTube channel to be kept up to date with the latest videos. Highlights from July’s talks are listed below.

1. Marina Costelloe - Mentoring through change, a perspective
2. Sumit Verma - Seismic Attribute Illumination of complex fault network North Slope, Alaska
3. Indrajit Roy - Computation methods in Geophysics

Follow our social media pages to stay up-to-date with the latest talks. Past talks can be found on the ASEG Videos Page.

Recommend a talk suggestion? Email communications@aseg.org.au.

ASEG Webinars

Date Presenter Title Registration Link
Thurs 06 Aug
1200 AWST
1330 ACST
1400 AEST
Anshuman Pradhan
(Stanford University)
WA Branch Night - End-to-end seismic inversion of geostatistically complex reservoir facies models with deep convolutional neural networks More details and to register click here
Wed 12 Aug
1030 AWST
1200 ACST
1230 AEST
The Happiness Concierge Inner critic workshop More details and to register click here
Thurs 18 July
1100 AWST
1430 ACST
1300 AEST
Alberto Ardid Segura
(University of Auckland)
Lithologically-constrained stochastic magnetotelluric inversion for imaging shallow conductors in geothermal fields More details and to register click here
Thurs 20 Aug
1200 AWST
1330 ACST
1400 AEST
Adam Smiarowski
(Chief Geophysicist, CGG)
Helitem2: New Technology in Airborne TEM for Deep and Covered Targets with Western Australia Examples More details and to register click here

SEG Webinars

The SEG are hosting a range of Webinars that are free to attend but require pre-registration.

Date Presenter Title Registration Link
Tues 22 Sept 2020
0400 AWST
0530 ACST
0600 AEST
Dr. Estella A. Atekwan
(2020 Virtual Near Surface Global Lecturer)
Biogeophysics: Exploring Earth's subsurface biosphere using geophysical approaches
More details and to register click here
23-24 Feb 2021 SEG Advances in Marine Seismic Data Acquisition Workshop More details and to register click here

Branch upcoming events

Due to COVID19 all in-person state branch activity has been suspended. Details about future ASEG Branch events can be found on the ASEG website.


For a more complete calendar of events see Preview

Date Event
11-16 October, 2020 SEG 2020 Annual Meeting, Houston, Texas
6 December 2020 82nd EAGE Annual Conference and Exhibition, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
7-11 December, 2020 AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, California
25-27 May 2021 AustMine, Perth, Australia
15-20 September 2021 AEGC 2021, Brisbane, Queensland


ASEG members can access Exploration Geophysics articles free of charge by logging into the ASEG website and navigating to Professional > Publications > Exploration Geophysics.

Dear Exploration Geophysics readers,

Hi all, I trust everyone is covid free and either just going back into isolation or finally escaping isolation (a very State dependent statement!!).

I note a couple of recent papers for your reading enjoyment. One by Kim et al. on using a pseudo-3D chirp sub-bottom profiler to investigate a wooden shipwreck site and another by Li et al on using a novel noise reduction method for spectrum induced polarisation data.

Dr Mark Lackie

Exploration Geophysics Editor

Mark.Lackie@mq.edu.au


The June issue of Preview is now available online.

Our "best of" series, marking the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists, continues in this issue. John Denham, who was Editor of Exploration Geophysics from 1994 - 99 makes his selection.

We also have a second feature; Kim Frankcombe details the approximation of magnetic response from topography (Magnetics in the mountains). A must read paper for anyone processing magnetic data acquired in topographically challenging environments.

David Denham (Canberra observed) reflects on 2020 – a year that is only half over. He also directs us towards some interesting reports that have been recently released, including a CSIRO report on hydrogen as an energy source. Michael Asten (Education matters) considers the impact of COVID-19 on geophysical teaching and research. Mike Hatch (Environmental geophysics) resumes his quest to improve the interpretation of data collected using ground conductivity meters. Terry Harvey (Mineral geophysics) offers sage advice about survey design. Mick Micenko (Seismic window) puts on his beer googles. Tim Keeping (Data trends) revisits ASEG GDF2, and Ian James (Webwaves) warns us to check up on our privacy.

The August issue of Preview is currently in production and should be published online in early August.

Proposed contributions for future issues can be submitted by email to the editor at previeweditor@aseg.org.au

Lisa Worrall

Preview Editor

PreviewEditor@aseg.org.au


Our Member Spotlight is off to Perth to meet Mark Duffett. Mark is a Senior Geophysicist with Mineral Resources Tasmania, in the section sometimes known as the Tasmanian Geological Survey. Mark has been a geophysicist for 27 years (24 if you don’t count the time he took a bit of a detour into GIS and remote sensing).

  1. What do you like most about being a geophysicist?
  2. The best of all worlds - numbers, maps and being in the field. Also the 'exploration' part of exploration geophysics, inferring things concealed or discovering entirely new things about the planet.

  3. If you weren't a geophysicist what would you be?
  4. Meteorologist or journalist.

    Mark Duffett and his gravity buddy out in the Tasmanian countryside in 2019. Photo - Mark Duffett

  5. What is your best interview tip?
  6. Make sure you listen really carefully to the entirety of the questions. Prematurely fixing on your answer to just one aspect and forgetting about the rest, or even worse, misconstruing it, can be a trap. Don’t be afraid to ask for a repeat of the question if you become unsure partway through your response to a complex multi-parter.

  7. What's one thing that we wouldn't know about you?
  8. I've been an Australian Rules football umpire (boundary, goal and field) for even longer than I've been a geophysicist. I think I may hold some sort of record for being the only person to have umpired on both the northernmost and southernmost proper footy grounds in Australia - Stanley Tipiloura Oval in the Tiwi Islands and Kermandie Oval near Geeveston.

  9. Tell us about your best field meal?
  10. The Breaker Burger at the Cape Crawford roadhouse aka Heartbreak Hotel in the NT. I have unsophisticated tastes.

  11. Where was your best sunrise/sunset location?
  12. The view looking west towards the Georgina Basin from the Lady Loretta field base ridge would regularly throw up some corker sunsets.

  13. What are you reading at the moment?
  14. Apocalyptic Good News: Christ in the Cosmos by theologian and former French Petroleum/CGG geophysicist R. Dean Drayton, and Jo Walton’s What Makes This Book So Great: Re-Reading the Classics of Science Fiction & Fantasy.

  15. What made you decide to be a geophysicist?
  16. See above under 'What do you like most about being a geophysicist'. Numbers, maps and measurement. Using physics to do geology seemed the perfect meld of interests.

  17. What's one thing you wish someone had told you when you were at university?
  18. Don't have quite so much fun in first year.

  19. What's your most treasured textbook?
  20. Not really a recognised textbook, but David Leaman’s CODES Master of Economic Geology short course manual – Exploration Geophysics, Remote Sensing and Image Processing Part 1 - ended up being the single most useful volume to me, much annotated. Highly practical distilled wisdom for sound potential field practice (especially in those pre-differential GNSS days when microbarometers had to be relied on for height determination) on every line.

  21. Your funniest or worst field memory?
  22. During a stint operating on my own out of the base at Lady Loretta, at that time on care and maintenance, I had to refuel my vehicle with diesel manually from drums. No matter how careful, my clothes would then reek of the stuff for days, even after washing. So I resorted to wearing nothing but a pair of thongs for refuelling. Crude but effective.

  23. Your most respected geophysicist?
  24. Michael Roach. Extremely capable, and generous with his time.

  25. What do you do in your spare time?
  26. Eclectic reading, walking, and non-lycra cycling, the latter a bit more sedately these days on my new e-bike. Very occasionally I write for The Footy Almanac. I also succumb to the temptation of Twitter too often (@MarkDuffett), where I indulge my interests in football (Central District in the SANFL, Adelaide in the AFL), cricket, and low carbon energy. And geoscience, of course.

  27. What is a challenge you have overcome and how did you do so?
  28. In 1997 I was tasked with conducting a gravity survey in the McArthur Basin, solo except for the assistance of a helicopter + pilot for a few days. Coming to grips with both a brand new digital gravity meter and differential GPS gear in short order was challenging, especially when on returning in the evening it turned out the base had decided to shut down in the middle of the day. The manual proudly advertised the North American receiver’s ability to function in temperatures down to -30, but midday insolation in November near the Gulf of Carpentaria…not so much, it appeared. Contriving a well ventilated and shaded platform for the receiver from scrounged materials (a couple of 44-gallon drums, bricks, a milk crate and a galvanised iron sheet) proved mostly sufficient to nurse it through.

  29. What is a challenge that you see in geoscience today, and how do you see the community overcoming it?
  30. The serious misperceptions of our science and the industries utilising it that exist among students and educators, which I believe is having a major impact on recruitment to geoscience. Ignorance is most prevalent, but outright hostility is also not uncommon. A good step towards overcoming this is for practitioners to be alert and prepared for opportunities to talk about what they do e.g. with local schools and elsewhere in the community.

  31. What reaction do you mostly get when you tell someone that you are a geophysicist?
  32. A what?

  33. When you are asked "What's a geophysicist??" or "What does a geophysicist do?" what is your stock answer?
  34. "You know, like on Time Team". We use physics to do geology in three dimensions.

    1997 - Mark taking a gravity reading in the NT with a background of Bukalara Sandstone. Photo - Mark Duffett

  35. What is the best way that the ASEG could let the public know about geophysics and its benefit to the everyday life?
  36. Keep plugging away at social media. Never miss an opportunity to highlight the links between exploration geophysics and the resources that are needed to build a better world. Not just as ASEG, but by empowering all members to bring their informed perspective to these issues in public and educational arenas. Continue to be open to supporting and collaborating with organisations like the Minerals Council, APPEA etc. on initiatives to address misperceptions in schools etc.

  37. Where do you think exploration geophysics will head in the next 10-15 years?
  38. Development of semi- and fully autonomous drones for data acquisition, regulation and research sector capability permitting. More effective, rigorous and easier synthesis of information from multiple techniques and data sources across the whole gamut of geoscience, coupled with better understanding of mineral systems. Machine learning will play a role, but so will better human understanding.

  39. Given a choice, would you prefer extra mentoring on the science, your career or the how to handle/explain exploration geophysics and its benefits to the community?
  40. I guess over time there's a tendency to migrate from the former to the latter, but I’d really like both!

  41. What aspect of geophysics do you enjoy most?
  42. Seeing new data.

  43. Do you think AI will take over your job or will the human element remain vital to exploration successes?
  44. I don't see the machines taking over in my lifetime, at least not my working one. Data-driven AI approaches will provide some marginal or incremental successes, but until we can model 4D geology to the level of being able to see why ore-forming processes occur exactly where they do, I can't see the much-sought step change in exploration success happening. A diversity of human intuitions will continue to be needed. There's a line in one of Arthur C. Clarke's writings, itself set centuries in the future, along the lines of “unlike chemistry, it would be centuries before earth science was a closed, surprise-free subject". I reckon he got that about right, as he did much else.

    But then again I used to think airborne gravity would always be impractical, so make of that what you will.

    Mark cradling his CG3 baby in an R22 helicopter the McArthur Basin, NT. Photo - Mark Duffett



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