
Seismic Soundoff
In-depth conversations in applied geophysics.
Episode 199: How geophysics keeps people safe
Steve Roche discusses his current Geoscientists without Borders project addressing volcano preparedness in Guatemala. Steve provides his on-the-ground perspective of the project. He offers what has been accomplished and his vision for the project’s future. This podcast takes joy in highlighting the humanitarian work of geophysicists worldwide. And this conversation is no exception in sharing how geophysics can impact communities through using the tools and knowledge that geophysicists have to give. And Steve is the perfect guest to showcase all that can be accomplished.
Episode 198: How to chart a successful career in 2023 w/ Kurt Marfurt
Kurt Marfurt reflects on his career and the recent award of SEG’s highest honor, the Maurice Ewing Medal. He offers his major takeaways from various career stops along his path and how his volunteer roles at the SEG advanced his career. Kurt provides wisdom on what’s changed and hasn’t changed in building a successful geophysical career and what he’s most proud of when looking back at his accomplishments. It’s a privilege to hear from geophysicists at the top of their profession, and Kurt provides actionable advice with a fun and insightful look back at his long career.
Episode 197: Building confidence in C02 storage with forecasting and monitoring
Philip Ringrose discusses his upcoming Distinguished Instructor Short Course, “Storage of Carbon Dioxide in Saline Aquifers – Building confidence by forecasting and monitoring.” Philip reviews the science and technology underpinning CO2 storage in deep saline aquifer formations using insights from several industrial-scale projects. Philip also addresses what’s needed to achieve climate-significant scales of CCS deployment. You should listen to this episode if you are interested in this topic.
Episode 196: The sound of seismic
Paolo Dell’Aversana highlights his article in The Leading Edge, discussing a dual-sensory approach to understanding seismic. Based on concepts well-established in cognitive sciences, Paolo introduces the idea of expanded imaging in geophysics, using a dual-sensory (audiovisual) perception of a data set. In this episode, Paolo explains the basic principles of multimodal seismic data analysis using augmented imaging theory. He shares the advantages and limitations of converting seismic data into an auditory format and outlines how geophysicists can start with this approach today. This episode unlocks secret information hiding in your seismic data waiting to be discovered.
Episode 195: Achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals with food
Sara Gentilini, founder of GEOfood, discusses how her organization supports the sustainable development of local communities and helps increase achievement towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Sara shares the history and purpose of UNESCO Global Geoparks and how she came up with GEOfood. She shares her unique definition of sustainable development and outlines her five sustainable food and agriculture principles. Sara also discusses how geophysicists can use their skills to impact sustainable food and agriculture. This is a unique topic that might inspire some new lines of thinking for your projects.
Episode 194: Improving integration in machine learning workflows
Felix J. Herrmann discusses his open-access article, “Learned multiphysics inversion with differentiable programming and machine learning.” He shares why the future of the oil and gas industry depends on the democratization of technology design. He provides insights into why modernizing wave-equation inversion frameworks is important to geophysics and shares the implications for the results of his study. This episode provides a glimpse into the future capabilities of machine learning to help provide the path for the next great discoveries in geophysics.
Episode 193: The potency of rock-physics-guided deep neural networks
Fabien Allo highlights his award-winning article, “Characterization of a carbonate geothermal reservoir using rock-physics-guided deep neural networks.” Fabien shares the potential of deep neural networks (DNNs) in integrating seismic data for reservoir characterization. He explains why DNNs have yet to be widely utilized in the energy industry and why utilizing a training set was key to this study. Fabien also details why they did not include any original wells in the final training set and the advantages of neural networks over seismic inversion. This episode is an exciting opportunity to hear directly from an award-winning author on some of today’s most cutting-edge geophysics tools.
Episode 192: Maximizing the value of IMAGE
In conjunction with episode 191, How to unlock the power of networking, these episodes will provide a solid foundation to maximize your value of attending IMAGE ’23.
Episode 191: How to unlock the power of networking
In this conversation with host Andrew Geary, Lia offers tips and best practices to fully utilize networking to further your career and technical skills. She explains why seven follow-ups (or touches) is the magic number, the importance of establishing credibility early, and how to use note-taking to your advantage.
Episode 190: The unique power of combining GPR and FWI
Anja Klotzsche discusses her Near-Surface Global Lecture, “Unlocking the potential of GPR for subsurface characterization by using full-waveform inversion.” Anja describes the recent developments in FWI that have impacted how to apply GPR. She outlines a few of her favorite GPR applications, the impact of AI on GPR, and her lightbulb moment when she realized her method was special. This episode will challenge you to consider GPR in a new way and, in so doing, put FWI in a new perspective as well.

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