Hi, I’m Dan Hollis, I’m the General Chairman for the 2018 SEG Meeting in Anaheim, and I look forward to seeing you next year in California, home to a wide variety of interesting locations that geophysicists will find fascinating, like these pump jacks conveniently located next to a Starbucks, right here in Signal Hill in Long Beach.

Most of the major oil fields in the Los Angeles/Anaheim area are along major earthquake faults and usually have a surface expression. Signal Hill is caused by a bend in the Newport-Inglewood Fault that causes the anticline that traps oil to make the Long Beach Oil Field.

The field, discovered in 1921, is one of the many prolific fields along the Newport-Inglewood Fault, a major fault system running through the Los Angeles Basin. This field has the distinction of the highest recovery of oil per producing acre of any field in the world. Its recovery rate is even more impressive when you consider the obstacles both above and below ground.

California oil producers have long faced challenges of making exploration and production compatible with urban life. When the first oil boom began in the Los Angeles basin in the 1890s, cities quickly arose alongside oil discovery and development. Over the decades, exploration and production became increasingly more difficult as urban populations grew denser and community standards became more stringent.

The Los Angeles Basin is the richest basin in the world in terms of hydrocarbons per volume of sedimentary fill – making it a very unique oil province. It contains a tremendous amount of oil, but the combination of cultural, logistics, and geological obstacles make economical recovery a challenge.

The Annual Meeting in Anaheim will provide you with many opportunities to learn about cutting edge solutions to some of the most difficult challenges that geophysicists face. Thousands of geoscience professionals from all over the globe will come together in Anaheim to explore a wide variety of topics, including big data, deep water exploration, geohazards, high-performance computing, induced seismicity, machine learning, near surface, oil and gas, seismicity, unconventionals, and more.

The SEG Annual Meeting in Anaheim will be an especially unique time for us to come together as one community of geophysicists in one of the world’s most geophysically-diverse and fascinating locations. Join me as we increase our knowledge and skills that allow us to continue making a real difference in the daily lives of all people across the globe. See you there.