Book Review

28 PREVIEW APRIL 2013

The Continental Drift Controversy
by Henry R. Frankel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
2012, Vol. I 632 pp., Vol. II 544 pp.
RRP: $100.00 ea, $356.00 set of four
(hardback)
ISBN: 978-0-521-87504-2 (Vol. I)
978-0-521-87505-9 (Vol. II)
The Continental Drift Controversy
by Henry R. Frankel is a tetralogy
beginning with Vol. I Wegener and
the Early Debate, followed by Vol. II
Paleomagnetism and Confirmation of
Drift, Vol. III Introduction of Seafloor
Spreading and concluding with Vol.
IV Evolution into Plate Tectonics.
These works document, as fully as
possible for one individual, the trials
and tribulations of Earth Scientists
last century to synthesise geological
information gleaned from earlier centuries
and the more refined data as it became
available through to the 1960s. Frankels
works cover the separate stages of the
continental drift controversy, from the
early suggestions by Wegener and others
that the Atlantic continents, i.e. their
continental shelves, fit together too well
for it to be simply chance, to the truly
amazingly rapid development and success
of paleomagnetic methods in the 1950s,
to the realisation that seafloor magnetic
and seismic data were screaming out to
be recognised as evidence of seafloor
spreading (the missing sibling of
continental drift) in the 1960s and the last
volume tops off these developments with
the crowning jewel of Plate Tectonics,
every bit as consequential as Evolution,
Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
This astonishing saga by a few
ringleaders is often compared with
Darwins and Wallaces contributions
to Life Science and Plancks, Einsteins
and others contributions to the Physical
and Chemical Sciences. It is on a par
with these. The personal conflicts are
similar in all these great revolutions,
with typically elder stalwarts refusing
to budge. Just as in the 19th century
the natural philosophers were divided
between Neptunists and Plutonists, the
early 20th century Earth Scientists were
divided between Fixists and Mobilists.
However, within a short period of
few decades, a complete revolution
occurred in favour of Mobilism and
newcomers to Earth Science late last
century and later imagined it had never
been different. The socio-philosophic
interplay is filled with intrigue and
enlightenment. The debates are exemplary
of the scientific process reminiscent
of the great experimentalists, Bacon,
Boyle and Hooke who held peer review
and reproducibility of results above
all else. Frankel puts a microscope on
the past, with the benefit of hindsight,
and retrospective interviews with the
surviving ringleaders of the revolution,
he reconstructs the key tipping points that
inexorably led to Plate Tectonics as we
know it today. In this review I hope to
give the reader a flavour (to attempt more
would be foolhardy) of the contents of
Vols I and II, and in a subsequent article
I will review Vols III and IV.
Vol. I is divided into nine chapters
covering (1) The mobilism debate,
(2) Wegener and Taylor, (3) Sub-
controversies of drift: 1920s1950s, (4)
The mechanism: 19211951, (5) Arthur
Holmes: 19151955, (6) Mobilism in
South Africa, India and South America:
1920s to early 1950s, (7) Mobilism in
North America: 1920s through 1950s,
(8) Mobilism in Europe: 1920s through
1950s, and (9) Fixism in Australia: 1920s
to the mid-1960s. Alfred Wegeners
evidence for continental displacement,
as he referred to it, did not stop with
congruency of continental shapes. He
also amassed much palaeontological
evidence, especially from land plant
fossils and, unsurprisingly since he
was a meteorologist, published much
on palaeoclimates, particularly with
his father-in-law, Wladimir Kppen. It
was the translation of his books into
English in the 1920s that threw down the
gauntlet to the fixist orthodoxy. Harold
Jeffreys life-long objections to drift are
well known, and stated early that drift
was out of the question because the
sima is too strong. Vol. I p. 59 states
that All these observations suggest that
sima is plastic and that the sialic
rind possesses a considerably greater
strength without lacking plasticity
altogether (Wegener, 1912). Wegener
also stated that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
... zone in which the floor of the Atlantic,
as it keeps spreading, is continuously
tearing open and making space for fresh,
relatively fluid and hot sima [rising] from
depth (Wegener, 1915), but while the
majority was against drift, Wegener did
not pursue seafloor spreading further.
Wegener was clearly ahead of his time.
After the single American edition of
Wegeners work was published in
1925, the American Association of
Petroleum Geologists held a symposium
to oppose the dangerous notion of
continental drift. This strong negativism
of US workers may play a part in their
belated acceptance of drift, and the
puzzling trouble John Graham, Carnegie
Institution, took to trash his own work to
which Ill return later.
Unfortunately Wegener did not live to
see his work vindicated. Vol. I p.45
states Wegener died in Greenland
leading a scientific exhibition (obviously
expedition, one of the few typographical
errors I found). Frankel also discusses in
some detail hypotheses of Frank Taylor
(continental creep), Eduard Suess, James
Dana (contractionism), Alex Du Toit
(disjunct biota/glacial stratigraphy), John
Joly (thermal cycles) and others beyond
the scope of this review.
Like Wegener, Arthur Holmes (whose
textbook that I bought in 1969 was
the best valued book I ever purchased,
1288 pages @ 0.54c per page), was also
aware that rocks could flow under
heat and pressure and developed his
theory of substratum convection. Jeffreys
grudgingly admitted that. [it] moved
mobilism from the impossible to the
highly unlikely (Vol. I p. 203). Holmes
was instrumental in the development
of the radiometric determination of
rock ages. He clearly had a good grasp
of radioactive decay and its thermal
consequences on the behaviour of rocks
deep in the Earth. Frankel devotes a
whole chapter (5) to Holmes, such was
his immense contributions to geology.
Chapters 6 to 8 of Vol. I discuss how
mobilism was received around the world
up to 1950s, when the game suddenly
changed with the rise of paleomagnetism.
In the last chapter (9 ) Frankel views
10.1071/PVv2013n163other
Book Review
APRIL 2013 PREVIEW 29
Australia as a nest of fixists. A brief
(pp.497502) section (9.2) headed
Geologists working on Australias
geology favourable to mobilism is
followed by a long tract (pp.503545)
of sections 9.3 to 9.6 headed Geologists
against mobilism, Paleontologists. in
Australia reject mobilism, Biologists..
in Australia disagree and Regionalism
in Australia. Five pages for and over
40 against. I do remember my first
year structural geology class being taught
geosynclines and the Steinmann Trinity
in first term. The lecturer came in after
a good read over Easter and stated we
would be taught plate tectonic in second
term. This department was Geology &
Geophysics and the head of geophysics
was none other than Ron Green and it
was almost 1970 so, recalling the title
of chapter 9 Fixism in Australia: 1920s
to the mid-1960s, perhaps Frankel has a
point!
In the (small) mobilist camp Edgeworth
David receives singular treatment but
others favouring mobilism were Leo
Cotton (who inspired, some would say
incited, Sam Carey) and Douglas Mawson
(Antarctic expedition). Mawson went to
Antarctica to examine the coastal geology
to compare to that of South Australia,
and while things went awry, he clearly
took Wegeners ideas seriously. In a
section (9.3) headed Geologists against
mobilism Frankel lists Ernest Andrews
(of Broken Hill fame), as the most out-
spoken Australian anti-mobilist. Andrews
was an early student of Davids, either
before his teacher decided where he
stood on the issue or strongly disagreeing
with his teacher. The naysayers include
Walter Bryan (of Mining and Geology
Research Centre, UQ fame), Edwin
Sherbon-Hills (University of Melbourne),
William Browne, who laboured for
years to finish Davids The Geology
of the Commonwealth of Australia, but
disagreed with him on mobilism and
Curt Teichert, who thought the lack of
Permian land animals in Australia, so
abundant in South Africa and South
America, was a problem for mobilism.
Browne also helped Ted Irving and Ron
Green on fieldwork when in his late
70s, but did not accept their findings,
even rejecting a manuscript of Irvings
submitted to the Journal of the Geological
Society of Australia.
Moving onto Vol. II, which describes
the incredible discoveries of the 1950s,
the reader is introduced to more
quandaries, True Polar Wander (TPW)
versus Apparent Polar Wander (APW),
the latter inferring another cause for
polar movements, such as drift, and
Geomagnetic Reversals versus Self-
reversal. Both these issues were shrouded
in baffling ambiguities that were only
fully unravelled after new evidence
came to light. In both these debates
Australian researchers were to play a
central role. Vol. II is divided into eight
chapters covering (1) Geomagnetism
and paleomagnetism: 19461952, (2)
British paleomagnetists: summer 1951
to fall 1953, (3) Global paleomagnetic
test: 19541956, (4) Runcorn shifts
to mobilism, (5) Refinement of
paleomagnetic support: 19561960,
(6) Earth expansion, (7) Criticism
of paleomagnetism: late 1950s and
early 1960s, (8) Reaction against the
paleomagnetic case and the radiometric
reversal timescale: 19581962. Below I
pick the eyes out of these juicy morsels.
Some may be surprised to learn that
the first group to study paleomagnetism
was at the Department of Terrestrial
Magnetism, Carnegie Institute in
Washington, DC, in the late 1930s. John
Graham is best remembered for devising
the fold test and conglomerate test,
which before the advent of laboratory
cleaning techniques were essential to
demonstrate reliability. It is truly ironic
that Graham found directions strongly
oblique to the local geomagnetic field
direction in folded strata that satisfied his
fold test but dismissed them, preferring
directions from flat lying strata aligned
with the field. The director of Terrestrial
Magnetism was a fixist and did not
believe in geomagnetic reversals. It
seems that to keep his job Graham had
to spirit away his perfectly reliable
results. Graham tortured himself for
the remainder of his career bringing
forth all kinds of spurious reasons why
rocks can show oblique magnetisation
direction, even reversals. To further
confound matters, in 1951 Japanese
workers, Seiya Uyeda and Takesi Nagata,
published results from the Haruna
dacite demonstrating self-reversal. This
dacite begins cooling with its (net)
magnetisation aligned with the field,
but after cooling further the previously
subordinate sub-lattice becomes dominant
and the (net) magnetisation is reversed.
One can imagine how this set a cat
among the pigeons!
Meanwhile, Jan Hospers in Cambridge
was accumulating results from Iceland
that showed normal and reverse basaltic
layers held a consistent stratigraphic
relationship. Evidence for geomagnetic
reversals became stronger as various
groups began systematic studies of young
piles of volcanics. Hospers was fortunate
to have Ron Fisher in Cambridge to
show him how to apply statistics to
his results. Fisher statistics introduced
order and consistency to the reporting of
paleomagnetic results.
In 1950 Keith Runcorn was in
Manchester, studying under Patrick
Blackett, who had developed a
magnetometer to test his theory about
the fundamental origin of magnetism.
Although his experiment proved negative,
Runcorn realised the magnetometer
could measure the weak remanence of
rocks. Runcorn was interested in secular
variation of the geomagnetic field, as a
means to study the mechanism behind
it. Runcorn thought a thick sedimentary
sequence would be ideal to record such
variations. In 1951 Runcorn moved to
Cambridge and hired Ted Irving to give
him the geological guidance he needed.
Ted was a mobilist and interested in
palaeomagnetism to detect polar motions.
Ken Creer also joined this group and
1952 to 1954 was such a prolific period
of determining basic paleomagnetic
results their full interpretation and
meaning was not immediately
appreciated, certainly not by Runcorn.
Irving and Creer knew their results better
than anyone else, they knew that the
armchair critics were fooling themselves.
But Irving failed his PhD, only because
his examiners would not fully appreciate
his results. Creer had a better run, with
Blackett as one of his examiners. This
did not concern John Jaeger, who was
setting up geophysics at ANU, and when
offered Irving jumped at the chance to
test drift using Australian rocks. Irving
was sent a few samples of Deccan Traps
for his Ph D and he realised the secret to
differentiating between TPW and APW
lay in studying the magnetisation of
Gondwana continents. By 1956/57 Irving,
with his student Ron Green, had proved
the point and although the fixists still
outnumbered the mobilists the latter camp
was growing, even Runcorn switched
camps.
In a twist of fate Irvings results from
the Deccan Traps caused Allan Cox
at the USGS Berkeley labs to reject
mobilism and concentrate on the study
of reversals. John Clegg from Blacketts
group confirmed Irvings result so the
Deccan Traps pole position could not be
spirited away as Graham had sought to
do to his results. Cox had sampled the
Eocene Siletz River Volcanics in Oregon
Book Review
30 PREVIEW APRIL 2013
and found a similar pole to that of the
Deccan Traps. Although Irving suggested
that Oregon may be rotated, which in
fact turned out to be correct, Cox was
unconvinced, his mind closed. Irving and
Cox did not always enjoy a convivial
relationship, especially when Irving and
another of his students, Don Tarling,
began working on reversal stratigraphy
of Pacific islands, including Hawaii, with
Ian McDougall as geochronologist. Irving
never saw this as a competition but Cox
apparently did, claiming that the USGS
would only allow them to work on the
Hawaiian Islands. It was years later when
Irving was awarded AGUs 1979 Bucher
Medal that Cox made amends with a
conciliatory citation. Vol. II ends with a
postscript describing latter-born mobilists
justifying their early recalcitrance on
various grounds, dissembling and revising
history to suit. Clearly this was not
confined to the US and Australia.
As if the profusion of quotes and
citations throughout the text are
not enough to support Frankels
reconstruction of events, each chapter
is followed by copious and detailed
notes carefully written to explain
arcane scientific concepts and interesting
asides that put various ideas into their
societal and scientific context. Read
and studied cover to cover the reader
is assured of a solid grounding in
historical geology and geophysics.
The new word I learnt from Frankel
is consilience, which I could not find
in my 1690 page Collins English
Dictionary. However, from Wikipedia
all becomes clear consilience (also
convergence of evidence or concordance
of evidence) refers to the principle that
evidence from independent, unrelated
sources can converge to strong
conclusions. Most apt.
Reviewed by Phil Schmidt
phil@magneticearth.com.au
H
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Data Trends
APRIL 2013 PREVIEW 31
Remote geophysical consulting
Guy Holmes
Guy.Holmes@spectrumdata.com.au
With the skyrocketing cost of Perth
office space, and the global trend of
remote staffing, I thought I would try an
experiment and work remotely from head
office within my humble abode.
The technology available for working
remotely is really very good. I thought
that aside from a few technical hurdles, it
would be easy to work from home so that
I could see my kids off to school in the
morning and help pick them up at the end
of the day maybe take some pressure
off of my wife? In between, I could get
in a full day of uninterrupted work and
start to eat regular meals (winwin).
I am a person that does not work well
with interruption. I tend to end up
working on the last thing I was asked to
do and my priorities go out the window.
Working from home would allow me
to shut out office distractions and focus
more on the priority tasks plus I could
leave NHL.com open on my second screen
all day and keep track of the ice hockey
scores without fear of anyone seeing me
use the internet inappropriately.
When working at the office, I used to
get in early, check my mail and then
complete as much as possible before the
Good mornings of staff arriving and
the sound of the grinder on the espresso
machine distracted me from my duties.
In my line of work, technology is a big
essential to being productive. Internet
access, a solid connection to my virtual
private network back at the office,
printing capabilities, voice and video
communication and good coffee simply
go hand in hand. With any one element
missing, my entire ability to work is
marginal at best.
For voice and video I use Skype mainly
because it is ubiquitous, and free. With
Skype, I can still stay in touch with
everyone at the office, attend meetings,
plus you get the added upside of
emoticons to express dissatisfaction or do
the odd breakdance, followed by a beer,
martini and a headache (or regurgitate
love that one): . I also
discovered that Skype allows me, free of
guilt, to interrupt anyone at head office,
while making it near impossible for them
to deny they are there.
So off I went to start the experiment.
My cardboard box (with the bottom that
always falls out) of desk essentials under
one arm, and my laptop and Dont Mess
with Texas coffee mug in the other.
Game plan
1. Get up early.
2. Knock out a bit of work and some
communications before kids get up.
3. Feed kids and get them to school.
4. Return to desk with third cup of coffee
and check NHL.com over breakfast.
5. Work until lunch.
6. Attend regular management meetings
during the day via Skype.
7. Then help pick up kids from school.
Obstacle 1: five kids in four schools
I forgot that I have five kids in four
different schools. Their school days start
within 15 minutes of each other, so the
race to get everyone to their schools
on time is fairly demanding (lets not
lie it is impossible). The kissing my
wife on the cheek and heading out of the
driveway to the office in the morning
has been replaced with two nappy
changes, three kids showers, five bowls of
cereal, four school lunches, four episodes
of SpongeBob, 10 pairs of shoe laces to
tie, the occasional extra nappy change,
and a lost shoe or hockey stick, or
swimming goggles that MUST be located.
In the first few weeks, I dont think
anyone in the office missed me. We had
five key data management projects on in
three different countries so my schedule
was quite busy and staying on top of my
duties was not easy, but I managed. Then
it happened
Obstacle 2: school holidays
Did I mention that I have five kids?
The two nappy changes, three kids
showers, five bowls of cereal, four school
lunches, four episodes of SpongeBob, 10
pairs of shoe laces to tie, the occasional
extra nappy change, and a lost shoe or
hockey stick, or swimming goggles was
replaced with a living hell like I have
never known.
I never knew that an 8 year old could
eat his bodyweight in corn flakes and
still manage to utter the words, what
do we have to eat?. And now, by 8:00
am (when I should be about to get stuck
into my day), the voices start. At first
I thought they were in my head, but no
they were at my feet: What are we going
to do today?; Can I have XYZ over for
a play date?; Have you seen my Lego
Batman Bat Mobile service station?.
By 8:30 am, when I would normally be
working so hard that veins would stick
out of my neck, I hear Im bored, Im
hungry, Lucy took my Lego Batman Bat
Mobile service station, and of course,
the mildly entertaining SpongeBob theme
song as the sultry tones underpinning all
of the banter (how many episodes did
they make of that show!?).
The results
1. Technology: performed well and was
in no way linked to a downturn in
productivity.
2. Meetings: I attended 100% less.
3. Time management: I learned skills
that would not have been possible
at the office (like building a Lego
castle with a 6 year old while talking
to the exploration manager of a large
multinational oil company).
4. Sales skills: I picked up new sales
skills like getting five kids into one
car without arguments by offering
(or selling them on) a choice of ice
cream or icy pole when they get home
from school).
5. Pseudo-geophysical skills: I learnt that
dirty nappy odours are non-linear
steeply logarithmic over time and also
omnidirectional irrespective of wind
direction or speed of infant travel.
Conclusion
The overall desired outcome of helping
my wife out by being at home during
the day while still being productive an
impossibility.
Petroleum
32 PREVIEW APRIL 2013
The demise of ASEG polarity
Michael Micenko
micenko@bigpond.com

I would like to dispatch to the annals
of history the term ASEG polarity or
Australian SEG polarity when referring to
seismic data displays. There is no ASEG
polarity standard.
Seismic data polarity is a common
source of confusion for many interpreting
geophysicists (Simm and White 2002),
including me. As a joint venture
representative I attend meetings and
presentations with several companies
and to fully understand the presentation
material it is necessary to confirm the
display polarity because it determines
how an increase (e.g. intrusives) or
decrease (e.g. gas sand) in acoustic
impedance appears.
The only definition of normal or
standard polarity I know is given in
the SEG Encyclopedic Dictionary of
Applied Geophysics (Sheriff 2002)
here is an excerpt from the online
version (http://wiki.seg.org/index.php/
Dictionary:Polarity_standard):
for a zero phase wavelet, a positive
reflection coefficient is represented by a
central peak, normally plotted black on a
variable area or variable density display.
This convention is called positive
standard polarity (an increase in
acoustic impedance produces a positive
reflection coefficient). There is also a
definition for minimum phase wavelets
but I will stay with zero phase because
most seismic processing aims to output
a zero phase wavelet a symmetrical
wavelet with a maximum value at zero
time.
The SEG Dictionary also describes dual
polarity displays as Troughs may be
colored red and peaks blue or black, or
some other combination of colors may be
used. This is more like a suggestion but
is an extension of the polarity definition
if the peaks are coloured black a
contrasting colour, commonly red, was
used to colour troughs.
The SEG Positive polarity definition
makes sense because an increase in
impedance produces a positive reflection
coefficient which is displayed by a
positive number or black peak. With this
definition the mathematics is consistent
and AVO analysis and seismic inversion
is simpler with no need to swap sign.
But in Australia and Europe the opposite
convention is often used. The correct
name for this convention is SEG Negative
standard polarity, not ASEG polarity.
The SEG polarity standard is quite clear
and is illustrated below (Figure 1) along
with the polarity conventions used by
an Australian operator, an international
operator working in Australia and a
European service provider. To confuse
interpreters even further Operator A
displays AVO (Figure 2) and inversion
results with the opposite polarity to their
display of standard seismic data. They
do this to avoid the situation shown
in Figure 3. Even industry leaders
Schlumberger (2013) have no consistent
usage, with their excellent web-based
Oilfield Glossary correctly describing
Positive polarity while their Petrel
software defaults to something else.
Figure 3 is an example of AVO
modelling from a recent prospect
presentation that I attended. This
company displays seismic data as
SEG Negative polarity (an increase in
impedance is displayed as a trough)
while their seismic modelling results are
displayed with SEG Positive polarity. To
enable the modelled and actual curves to
be compared directly one of the displays
has been flipped. In this case the model
display was flipped and the curves can
be compared but the text and labels are
difficult to read.
So what has brought about this
confusion?
We can blame it on computers the
introduction of digital recording brought
about the need to define polarity and
this led to the SEG polarity standard
published in 1975 (Thigpen et al. 1975).
Fig. 1. The SEG positive polarity standard for zero phase wavelets. From left, an increase in acoustic
impedance ptroduces a positive reflection coefficient that is displayed on wiggle variable area displays as
a black peak or blue on a variable density colour display. The three right wavelets illustrate the variety of
conventions used by three companies operating in Australia. Only one uses the SEG standard.
Fig. 2. Even companies with well-defined standards have internal variation. The Schlumberger glossary
of oil field terms (internet) correctly describes the SEG standard, but their interpretation software (Petrel)
defaults to something else. A major operator uses SEG Negative polarity for seismic displays but reverts to
SEG Positive polarity for QI and AVO displays.
Petroleum
APRIL 2013 PREVIEW 33
This document provided details of tests
and standards for seismic acquisition
and included this text An increase
in acoustic impedance recorded as a
negative number on tape. I understand
this was a pragmatic decision because
most manufacturers at the time wired
their sensors in this way. But the standard
was for acquisition standards and did not
contain a definition for displaying the
data on paper or computer screens. About
1988 John Denham (Chief Geophysicist
BHP) queried the authors of the 1975
standard and they replied confirming that
the standard did not include displaying the
recorded data for interpretation. It was not
until the mid-90s that the later editions
of the SEG Encyclopedic Dictionary
defined polarity without any fanfare the
definition just appeared. The intervening
gap of approximately 20 years was
plenty of time for various companies to
implement their own polarity definition.
Generally, the US went for SEG positive
and Europe and Australia went negative
or reverse polarity.
There are a number of reasons for the
negative polarity convention becoming
common place. Here are three.
Probably the simplest is that a negative
number on tape is simply displayed as a
trough on paper.
The second reason harks back to seismic
refraction records. Refraction seismic
uses first arrivals which are refracted
along a boundary across which the
seismic velocity (impedance) increases
and commonly refraction instruments
were wired to display first arrivals as a
deflection downwards. This convention
carried over into seismic reflection
records.
All very technical but my favourite
explanation is an anecdote from the days
when seismic interpretation was drawn
on paper sections using coloured pencils
to pick reflectors which were most
commonly at major increases in acoustic
impedance. If the increase in impedance
was displayed as a trough (an unfilled
wiggle deflecting to the left) the coloured
pencil line was easier to see. This
convention also had the added bonus that
the coals (common in the Gippsland and
Cooper Basins) were displayed as black
peaks and hence looked coally.
This brings me back to my opening for
consistency we should all be using the
SEG Positive polarity standard and terms
such as ASEG or Australian polarity
should be replaced with the correct term
SEG Negative polarity. Unfortunately I
havent seen any evidence of willingness
in the industry to move in this direction
and there will be more confusion when
4D seismic and shear wave data becomes
more commonplace.
Finally Ill finish with an extract from
a Schlumberger Petrel users guide . The
Polarity and colour conventions described
in Petrel manuals are the default color
scale displays troughs as cold blue
colors and peaks as hot red and yellow
colors. This appears to be against another
popular convention used, whereby
positive amplitudes are usually displayed
in blue tones. Whatever convention
is chosen, it is up to each user to make
this clear in any resulting map or display
showing amplitude related information.
Thanks for that this is exactly why the
confusion continues.
References
Simm, R., and White, R. 2002, Phase,
polarity and the interpreters wavelet.
First Break Vol. 20.
Schlumberger. 2013, Oilfield glossary.
http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/
Sheriff, R. 2002, Encyclopedic dictionary
of applied geophysics. January.
http://wiki.seg.org/index.php/
Dictionary:Sheriff%27s_Dictionary
Thigpen, B. B., Dalby, A. E., and
Landrum, R. 1975, Special report
of the subcommittee on polarity
standards. Geophysics 40(4), 694699.
doi:10.1190/1.1440562
Fig. 3. Example of AVO modelling results presented by an Australian operator. For comparison the
display of modelled results has been inverted to account for the negative polarity convention of the
seismic data (lower right). Inverting the graphical display to match the measured seismic response
results in unreadable text (arrows).
Business Directory
34 PREVIEW APRIL 2013
Flagstaff GeoConsultants
Integrated geophysical, geological and exploration
consultancy services. World-wide experience.
Hugh Rutter Geof Fethers Gary Hooper
Michael Asten Paul Hamlyn
Jovan Silic Ross Caughey
Postman@flagstaff-geoconsultants.com.au Phone: 61 3 8420 6200
www.flagstaff-geoconsultants.com.au Fax: 61 3 8420 6299
Flagstaff GeoConsultants Pty Ltd (ABN 15 074 693 637)
A TOTAL EXPLORATION SERVICE

BOREHOLE WRELNE
For Logging & nterpretation 8ervice
www.borehole-wireline.com.au
781 South Rd, (PO Box 21), Black Forest. SA. 5035. Tel/Fax: 08 8351 3255
Geophysical Borehole Logging

Acoustic / Optical BH Image Processing

Uranium Coal CBM Iron Ore
Geothermal Groundwater Geotechnical

Units operating throughout Australia.
(Vehicle based & Portable)
ADVANCED SUBSURFACE INVESTIGATIONS
Phone: +61 2 9890 2122 / +61 8 64361591
Fax: +61 2 9890 2922
E-mail: info@gbgoz.com.au
Web: www.gbgoz.com.au
Land & Marine Engineering
Geophysics Consulting Services

Geophysics Equipment Rental
Australian agent for sales & servicing GEM Systems
Alpha Geoscience Pty. Ltd.
Unit 1/43 Stanley Street,
Peakhurst NSW 2210, Australia
Ph: (02) 9584 7500
Fax: (02) 9584 7599
info@alpha-geo.com
Geophysical instruments,
contracting and
consulting services
www.alpha-geo.com
Business Directory
APRIL 2013 PREVIEW 35
ROCK PROPERTIES
MASS - Density, Porosity (permeability also avail.)
MAGNETIC - Susceptibility, Remanence; Aniso.
ELECTRICAL - Resistivity, Anisotropy; IP effect [galvanic]
ELECTROMAGNETIC Conductivity, mag k [inductive]
SEISMIC - P, S Wave Velocities, Anisotropy
DIELECTRIC - Permittivity, Attenuation (by arrangement)
THERMAL - Diffusivity, Conductivity (by arrangement)
MECHANICAL - Rock Strength (by arrangement)
SYSTEMS EXPLORATION (NSW) PTY LTD
Contact - Don Emerson Geophysical Consultant
Phone: (02) 4579 1183 Fax: (02) 4579 1290
(Box 6001, Dural Delivery Centre, NSW 2158)
email: systemsnsw@gmail.com
www.MiraGeoscience.com info@mirageoscience.com
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Software, training, consulting
ntegrated, quantitative, multi-
disciplinary 3D earth modelling
Geophysical data interpretation,
forward modelling and inversion
Drillhole targeting


Tensor Research
Geophysical Software Research and Services
David A Pratt Mob +61 414 614 117 Tel +61 2 9404 8877
david.pratt@tensor-research.com.au
www.tensor-research.com.au
Encom ModelVision - development, support, sales
Encom QuickMag - sales
Encom PA - sales
Training, consulting research & software development
MagneticEarth
phillip schmidt phd
po box 1855
macquarie centre nsw 2113
email phil@magneticearth.com.au
mobile 0410 456 495
web www.magneticearth.com.au
solutions for all magnetic
exploration problems
ABN 22 145 073 230
coaliron oremineral sandsdiamondsbase metalsground water
+61 0447 691 873
If the signal from your deposit is there, our
potassium vapour magnetometers will detect it
the first time, saving you time and money.
Want to use the best technology in the
world for your ground magnetic surveys?
modernmagnetic.com
ground mag surveys
Calendar of Events 201314
36 PREVIEW APRIL 2013
Preview is published for the Australian Society
of Exploration Geophysicists. It contains news of
advances in geophysical techniques, news and
comments on the exploration industry, easy-to-read
reviews and case histories, opinions of members,
book reviews, and matters of general interest.
Advertising and editorial content in Preview
does not necessarily represent the views of the
ASEG or publisher unless expressly stated. No
responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of any
of the opinions or information or claims contained
in Preview and readers should rely on their own
enquiries in making decisions affecting their own
interests. Material published in Preview becomes
the copyright of the ASEG.
Permission to reproduce text, photos and artwork
must be obtained from the ASEG through the
Editor. We reserve the right to edit all submissions.
Reprints will not be provided, but authors can
obtain, on request, a digital le of their article.
Single copies of Preview can be purchased from
the Publisher.
All editorial contributions should be submitted to
the Editor by email at jthe1402@bigpond.net.au. For
style considerations, please refer to the For Authors
section of the Preview website at: www.publish.
csiro.au/journals/pv.
Preview is published bi-monthly in February, April,
June, August, October and December. The deadline
for submission of material to the Editor is usually
before the 15th of the month prior to the issue date.
The deadline for the June 2013 issue is 9 May 2013.
For the advertising copy deadline please contact
Wendy Wild
on (03) 9662 7606 or wendy.wild@csiro.au.
May 2013
1013 May SEG/AAPG African Geosciences Student Conference
http://www.agsc2013.org/
Lagos Nigeria
1316 May Geoinformatics 2013: XIIth International Conference Geoinformatics: Theoretical and Applied Aspects
http://www.eage.org
Kiev Ukraine
June 2013
1013 Jun London 2013: 75th EAGE Conference & Exhibition incorporating SPE EUROPEC2013
http://www.eage.org
London UK
August 2013
1114 Aug ASEG-PESA 2013: 23rd International Geophysical Conference and Exhibition
http://www.aseg-pesa2013.com.au/
Melbourne Australia
September 2013
811 Sep Near Surface Geoscience 2013
http://www.eage.org
Bochum Germany
30 Sep4 Oct Sustainable Earth Sciences 2013: Technologies for Sustainable Use of the Deep Sub-surface
http://www.eage.org/events/index.php?eventid=960&Opendivs=s3
Pau France
October 2013
611 Oct SAGA 13th Biennial Conference and 6th international AEM 2013
http://www.saga-aem2013.co.za/
Mpumalanga South Africa
710 Oct 7th Congress of the Balkan Geophysical Society
http://www.eage.org
Tirana Albania
November 2013
1820 Nov The 11th SEGJ International Symposium: Geophysics for establishing a sustainable secure society
http://www.segj.org/is/11th/
Yokohama Japan
2427 Nov Second International Conference on Engineering Geophysics
http://www.eage.org
Al Ain UAE
January 2014
2022 Jan The 7th International Petroleum Technology Conference (IPTC)
http://www.iptcnet.org/2014/doha/
Doha Qatar
February 2014
2527 Feb SPE/EAGE European Unconventional Resources Conference and Exhibition
http://www.eage.org/index.php?evp=1979
Vienna Austria
March 2014
912 Mar GEO 2014 11th Middle East Geosciences Conference and Exhibition
http://www.geo2014.com/
Manama Kingdom of Bahrain
April 2014
710 Apr The 6th Saint Petersburg International Conference and Exhibition
http://www.eage.org/index.php?evp=1979
Saint
Petersburg
Russia
June 2014
1619 Jun 76th EAGE Conference and Exhibition incorporating SPE EUROPEC 2014
http://www.eage.org
Amsterdam The Netherlands