It seems like it has been a short year, so this is my last chance to visit with you as President of CCGS. I have enjoyed working with each of you and participating in the many accomplishments of the Society this year. I am going to miss the monthly reminders from Marian Wiedmann of the deadlines for the Bulletin, however I did a pretty good job of staying ahead of her angst. I have tried to focus on the critical issues and successes each month. I hope I got my messages across.

Speaking of accomplishments - I did not get everything done that I had promised myself. You couldn’t call them campaign promises because I was drafted for this job and didn’t have to run. I am disappointed that we did not have the Field Trip that Dr. Jim Garrison volunteered to lead, and that we did not obtain any new type logs, or the correlation chart several of us had envisioned. Also very little progress was made in attracting sponsors for our Historical Documentary. Well, as the Aggies say - “wait until next year.”

Enough about what we didn’t do, how about all the things we did accomplish:

Congratulations to our hyper-energetic Past President, Owen Hopkins, who will be honored at the AAPG Annual convention in Denver, Colorado as the recipient of the Public Service Award for his successful and continuing program “Planting the Seeds of Geologic Knowledge” and to Brian Calhoun who received the Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists’ “Outstanding Service Award” at the Annual SIPES Convention in Hilton Head, SC in April for his many contributions to our profession through his extensive work with SIPES.

“Planting the Seeds of Geologic Knowledge”, supported by CCGS and many individuals consists of “Maps in Schools”, “Bones in Schools” and geological exhibits in two of our area libraries and 20 science posters for Ray High School.

So far our “Maps in Schools Project” has distributed over 1,100 geologic maps to schools throughout the country, and this program has been picked up by several societies in Texas and has spread to to eleven states – but mainly in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. It has also been added to the “Rocks in Your Head” programs funded by AAPG. SIPES-Oklahoma City is distributing 50 in southern Oklahoma.

The next project “Bones in Schools”, now in progress, is to place La Brea-era(Ice Age) bones, collected from the Wright Brothers gravel pits located near Bluntzer in all our area schools. The site owners donated the bones, collected by Dr. Jon Baskin, Head of the Biology Department at Texas A & M Kingsville, and Ronnie Thomas, to the Texas A&M Kingsville-Dept. of Biology, stipulating that they be given away only for educational purposes. Dr. Baskin’s Biology Department and Ronnie Thomas donated 62 boxes of these bones to Miller and Ray High Schools. This donation, and inspiration from Owen, sparked enough interest among the students that they formed paleontology clubs to sort through the bones and identify them. (please see photo of Miller High School Paleontology Club elsewhere in this issue) These bones will be displayed on special stands created by students in the welding classes at the Craft Training Center of the Coastal Bend. Each welding student will then present the stand he designed along with a bone and a poster describing the age and name of the fossil to his own school.

Our Library Program is off to a great start. The society has donated a 65 million-year-old fossil fish (Diplomystus) preserved in limestone to the New Garcia Library that was built next to Kaffie Middle School. This fossil is prominently displayed in the children’s special educational section. Our mural, created by artist Dinah Bowman depicting “A Snapshot of Nueces County During the Ice Age 13,230 years ago”, is now complete and will be scanned to 14 X 7 feet onto wall paper to be hung on the wall of the Northwest Branch Library along with the actual fossil leg and shoulder of a Mammoth taken from the Wright Brothers gravel pits and provided by Dr. Jon Baskin and Ronnie Thomas. The mural project has also inspired the development of coloring books for the children to use in learning about our ancient landscape.

The Executive Committee unanimously voted to honor three of our outstanding long time members. The three were introduced at the April Luncheon Meeting. Ray Govett, a Past President of CCGS, was elected to Honorary Membership, the highest honor that can be given to a member for his many contributions to the Society, his professional services to our members and for his great work as Chairman of the Historical Committee in spearheading the effort to bring us our most successful publication “Wooden Rigs and Iron Men.” Charlie Jacobs and Matt Rokovich each received the Distinguished Member Award for their loyalty, service, longevity and participation with our members.

The board reviewed the various funds managed by the Coastal Bend community Foundation and in an effort to eliminate confusion surrounding the purposes and allocation of the revenues from the” Don Boyd Continuing Education Fund” and the “CBCF Library Geology Exhibit & CE Project Fund (Savings)”, unanimously adopted a resolution re-naming the Don Boyd Fund “THE DON BOYD ENDOWMENT FUND” with the stipulation that only the interest in excess of 5% earned annually could be spent on the projects and activities, specified in the original document setting up this fund in 1999. (Please see copies of the original document and this resolution elsewhere in the bulletin). The Board agreed that henceforth all donations for projects not specifically designated for the Don Boyd Permanent Endowment Fund would be deposited in the ”CBCF Library Exhibit & CE Project Fund ( Savings)” and be distributed by the CCGS Board of Directors at the request of the leaders of the various approved projects.

A review of the document titled “Declaration of Irrevocable Trust” that set up our Scholarship Program determined that some of the provisions had not been followed in recent years. We learned that this program was not a standing committee of CCGS, but an independent Board of six members appointed by the Executive Committee of the Society and included the current President of the Society. The new Board will be appointed at the April Executive Committee meeting and plans are underway to award scholarships at our May meeting. The Executive Committee also voted to transfer funds from the operating account and the UBS Savings Fund to the Scholarship Fund in order to bring the fund total to approximately $100,000.00 and to recommend that the New Board award a total of $5,000.00 in scholarships for 2009. Additional matching scholarship funds were requested from GCAGS by Dan Pedrotti at its spring meeting, on April 22nd in Shreveport, LA.

Our participation in our other usual activities, including the Gem & Mineral Show and Earth Day/Bay Day, chaired by Alan Costello, were very successful due to the work of our perennial volunteers and plans for the 13th Annual Family Fossil Filed Trip (May 23) are complete and after last years success we are expecting a large crowd. Thanks to Dawn Bissell the Annual Shrimp Boil was a great event, and the shrimp, donated by Core Lab, were delicious. Back in the seventies, my partner Bill Miller and I chaired the Shrimp Boil for many years.

We have had exceptional speakers and good attendance at our Monthly Luncheon Meetings, thanks to the Program Chairmen of CBGS and CCGS. I especially want to congratulate Rick Paige of Suemaur Exploration and Production, CCGS Vice President and Program Chairman, for his innovative approach to our meetings and for bringing Dr. Harrison H. Schmitt, “Geologist Astronaut” who visited the moon in 1972 on the Apollo 17 mission here to Corpus Christi.

It has been a full year and I cannot begin to express my admiration for our member-volunteers. With most everyone struggling as independents or working for one, I am amazed at your willingness to give so freely of your spare time to make all these programs such successes. I doubt that any other geological society in the country can boast of as many dedicated members.

Thanks again for letting me be a part of this exciting year. I leave with a great sense of confidence in my successor, Juan Cabasos and the splendid line up of Officers and Directors who will work with him. Juan has well fulfilled his role as President–Elect, always ready and available to step in where needed. Thanks Juan for getting core Lab to cover the costs for students who attended our Monthly Luncheons. I would also like to recognize Sebastian Wiedmann who has served the society for many years in every board position we have and continues to participate. I wish to extend a special thanks to all the other members of the Executive Committee who have served with me, many of whom will also work with Juan.

Have another great Society year in 2009-10.

Your President for 2008-09,
Daniel A. Pedrotti.

Our worst nightmare has come true. President Obama and the Democratic Congress have proposed tax increases on the American Oil & Gas Industry that could very possibly spell the end for us who are in the independent exploration business. The President along with the liberal oil industry haters have finally gotten the clout that could allow these punitive measures to pass.

Among the proposals that primarily affect us are:

     Repeal Expensing of Intangible Drilling Costs
     Repeal of Percentage Depletion
     Increase Amortization Schedule for Geological and Geophysical Costs
     Repeal Marginal Well Tax Credit, and
     Repeal Enhanced Oil Recovery Credit

Of course the first three are the proposals that could be most damaging to us as independents. Without depletion allowance, expensing of intangible drilling costs and amortization of G & G costs, exploration capital could become our dinosaur. With product prices, especially natural gas, headed for levels not seen since the early 90’s and with tax incentives no longer available who is going to invest in the development of reserves much less want to wildcat?

It appears to me that this Administration and Congress have embarked on a plan that will wipe out the last vestiges of Capitalism in this country. At the present time the Oil Industry is one of the very few viable industries, along with the small businesses, that are not on their heels asking for bail outs from the Federal Government. This illogical approach appears destined to destroy what is left of the engines of progress that have made this country great by using the successful enterprises, through exorbitant taxes, to fund the redistribution of wealth that they have envisioned. Where else can they get the funds?

Are these proposals due to ignorance of the outcome or as I tend to believe, a devious attempt to destroy the last vestiges of Capitalism here in North America? With the last viable industry and the small businesses (we are all small businesses) forced to join the huge reservoir of bankrupt companies or go out of business, there will be only one way out – the Federal Government. Is this what our Founding Fathers envisioned and fought the revolution to accomplish? Unfortunately many of our more prestigious universities have taught a whole generation not to appreciate what has made this country great, and these are the voters who helped elect this anti capitalist President and Congress.

Public sentiment favoring such dramatic punishment for our industry is fueled by the huge profits reported by all the Major Oil Companies last year while gasoline and diesel fuel reached $4.00 plus per gallon through our country. This situation was parlayed by the media into a frenzied backlash. We all agreed that $140.00 oil and $15.00 natural gas was bad for the economy, but it was brought on by greedy speculators not our industry leaders. Unfortunately this fact was not reported by the national media.

I along with Owen Hopkins and a number of local business leaders concerned with energy matters were privileged to attend a luncheon recently and enjoy a discussion on world wide energy policy by Amy Meyers Jaffe, The Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. Ms. Jaffe is also the Associate Director, Rice University Energy Program. Her speech “The Global Energy Market: Geopolitical and Financial Risks” was extremely enlightening. Among her many global observations is the premise that Saudi Arabia preferred world oil prices in $40.00 to $45.00 range and had the reserves to insure this price deck.

Another succinct observation regarding Russian – Iranian relations, deals with the fact that part of the huge Qatar gas field is in Iran. Iran desperately wants help from Russia to enable exportation of this gas to Europe in order to get their share when the huge LNG program gets underway. Russia is not inclined to help with this as it would compete with Russian dominance of the European gas market.

During the Q & A session after the speech I posed my thesis regarding the intent of the anti industry tax proposals before the Congress, that they are an attempt to destroy capitalism. Ms. Jaffe found my observations intriguing but disagreed. Her response was that we were the only possible source of the monetary resources needed to fund the massive welfare programs contained in the stimulus package and the new fiscal budget. I am still not convinced, however Ms. Jaffe is much more experienced and informed than I could possibly think.

According to an IPAA (Independent Petroleum Association of America) News Release the Obama Energy Budget could shut down thousands of American oil and gas wells, increase imports, cause massive layoffs and destroy a huge revenue source to the Federal Government. According to IPAA, American independent natural gas and oil producers develop 90 percent of US wells; produce 82 percent of US natural gas and 68 percent of US oil. The tax changes proposed in the Obama Energy Budget would strip over $30 billion from US natural gas and oil production investment. This huge loss of risk capital would primarily impact the independent oil operators – us.

It is the sense in Congress and the public citizens that the Major Oil is the primary villain and unfortunately we get lumped in with it. It is obvious that we, the independents, must separate ourselves from the Majors and let the Administration, Congress and the Public know the facts contained in the IPAA news release. If the public perception is that they have not invested sufficiently in domestic exploration and are hoarding vast piles of profits instead of promoting energy self sufficiency it must be pointed out that this is not the case for Independents.

Without a doubt we are back to the 70s and the President Carter economic policies. We can’t afford another disaster such as we endured then. It is up to each and everyone to spread the word of this impending destruction of our industry and make all our representatives aware that we intend to fight to the bitter end with our entire wherewithal in order not only to save our way of life, but to prevent further dependence on foreign sources of energy.

I remember the battles we had with congress in the 70’s. We came out addled but still survived. Remember we can live on $3.00 natural gas and $30 to $40.00 oil but cannot survive the exorbitant and punitive tax revisions proposed by our President.

Daniel A. Pedrotti
CCGS President

I did not know whether to expect gloom and doom or guarded optimism at NAPE this year due to the sudden change in conditions for our industry. I was not able to attend, but have been told that it was still crowded with a lot of booths, but there was not as many folks looking for deals as in previous years. This may be due to the fact that most booths and registrations for both the spring and Fall NAPES were made a year ago when things looked great. I understand that despite the subdued atmosphere there was considerable interest in good prospects and optimism that this would be a relatively short down turn and that when we recover it will be significant. I do not have details on how many people actually attended. If anyone knows let me hear from you.

Looking forward to the rest of our 2008-09, the society continues to be strong financially and poised for another good year. All of our projects are moving ahead, our members continue to volunteer and we have record enrollment in geology at both of our A & M Universities. Rick Paige and John Ralph have done a terrific job presenting programs for our luncheons and Owen has expanded “Maps in Schools” nation wide.

I trust that most of you enjoyed James Coleman’s perspective on “Undiscovered Recoverable Potential of the Jackson and Vicksburg Groups – Onshore” and our after hours gathering at Joe’s Crab Shack for his discussion of the “Geological Aspects of the Fall of Vicksburg – Civil War 1863”. Thanks Rick for coming up with this idea and to our sponsors of this event, Core Lab, DOWDCO, Veritas, and Wild Horse Desert Petroleum Land & Title.

William D. DeMis, Exploration Manager for Roxanna Oil Company, will be our speaker for our March meeting. His topic is ”False Negatives and Log-Normal Distribution as Concepts for Finding By-Passed Pays and Plays” . This paper won the “Best Presentation” award at the September 2008 Petroleum Technology Transfer Conference in Denver, Colorado. Mr. DeMis uses several examples of passed up pays that should be very interesting to all of us. Thanks, Rick Paige for bringing us another interesting and educational program.

Coming up in May we have a special treat for our luncheon on May 20th. Rick Paige has done it again and has Dr. Harrison H. (Jack) Schmitt, a geologist who became the first scientist-astronauts to explore the moon’s surface on the Apollo 17 mission of December 17th, 1972. Dr. Harrison has continued a distinguished career (see announcement elsewhere in the bulletin). Dr. Harrison usually charges $15,000 per speaking engagement, but Rick got him to come to Corpus for 1/3rd that amount. A number of our members have already sent in pledges to cover the cost. I am In the process of inviting our fellow local scientific organizations to join us for the meeting, as we did last year for Red McCombs. The luncheon on May 20th, will be held in Ortiz International Conference Center to accommodate a larger than usual crowd.

Keep finding good prospects. They always sell.

Daniel A. Pedrotti
CCGS President

Good bye to 2008 and thank God it is over. A year that saw unprecedented prosperity for our industry ended with the sharpest decline in value of our products since 1985. All these reserves developed at high exploration, drilling and completion costs have suddenly become marginally profitable yet we must continue producing them. Many of our high risk-high potential prospects have become uneconomic, that is until drilling costs come down to reasonable levels. Hopefully our sunk costs – overhead, leases, seismic and other exploration expenses will be recovered sooner than later as our prospects again become economic due to stabilized commodity prices, reduced exploration costs, normalized drilling rates and lower completion costs. The sharp decline in steel prices should positively affect us very soon.

Predictions for the turn around from this world wide recession vary from the fourth quarter of 2009 to who knows when. I remember in 1985 our oil and gas economists were predicting recovery in oil and gas prices at any moment and yet it was well into the 1990s before we began to see the light. This time the world demand for oil will be much stronger when the world economies start to rebuild, as we just don’t have the reserves to supply the likes of India and China. So let’s pray for a quick resurgence in economic growth world wide.

The outcome of the elections could not have been worse. Although we had few true champions of domestic production in the last congress, we now have many more who despise our industry and want to destroy our entire capital structure way of doing business. I am shocked that over half of the voters preferred big government spenders over the conservative ideals that created and have sustained the greatest country in history. Wanting the new administration to successfully launch big spending programs to bring us out of recession is like rooting for the team that beat us in the Super Bowl.

Now that I have painted such a bleak picture let’s look at the bright side. Most Companies have not yet disclosed their 2009 exploration plans or budgets. There have not been massive layoffs of our exploration and production scientists and except for the resource plays we haven’t seen a dramatic down turn in drilling activity. We are already seeing softening in drilling costs and with steel prices collapsing our tubulars are sure to get back to normal soon. If you rat holed your profits from the first eight months of 2008, now is the time to kick your prospect generation activates into high gear. You should be able to acquire seismic data and oil leases a lot cheaper, so warehouse as many deals as you can afford and keep on mapping.

Most economists are predicting that when the recovery begins there will again be a shortage of the oil and gas needed to fuel the world and our products will again increase in value maybe even skyrocket to higher levels than were seen in 2008. So keep your optimism, but be informed on what is going on in Congress, and don’t be afraid to contact your representatives when some of the detrimental legislation that has been proposed comes to the floor.

Daniel A. Pedrotti
CCGS President

Thinking of year end planning? Despite our economic woes and collapse of prices for oil and gas, this may be the year to consider making a donation to one of the Corpus Christi Geological Society’s funds. I know that most of us have serious income tax problems due to the great year we had up until September. Never in my time in the business has there been better product prices and profitability, so let’s not give it all to the new administration to waste.

Our Society has several dedicated funds that could use your financial support. They are: The Don Boyd Continuing Education Fund; The Library Geology Exhibit and CE Project; The Corpus Christi Geological Society History Fund and The Corpus Christi Geological Society Scholarship Trust Fund. All of these funds qualify as tax deductible entities and thus donations to them can help reduce your 2008 Income Tax burden.

The Don Boyd Fund was started by the 1999-2000 Executive Committee as a way of honoring Don Boyd by using some of the proceeds from the GCAGS Convention that was held here under Don’s leadership. The Committee set aside $16,000 for the purpose of furthering the education and understanding of geology and earth sciences in the Corpus Christi area. The idea was to spend the interest from this fund, on an annual basis, for local educational projects such as Field trips for our members, donations to local schools or universities for science equipment, recognizing local teachers or professors for promoting a program to young students that fits the above criteria, to help finance seminars or schools that would benefit our members and to help fund new publications. Unfortunately none of these objectives were funded until Owen Hopkins embarked on our “Maps in Schools, Bones in Schools and Boulders in Schools” projects. Owen was able to solicit significant donations for his projects which passed through the Don Boyd Fund, but actually none of the original $16,000 plus earned interest has been spent, so the fund now stands at around $20,000. There are basically two ways to honor Don by donating to this fund: 1. You may designate your gift to become part of a permanent endowment allowing the principal to grow and thus create increasing interest available for projects or 2. You may designate any specific educational project, and your gift will pass through to be used on a current basis.

The Library Geology Exhibit and CE Project Fund, also begun by Owen Hopkins, envisions a major geologic exhibit at our main library and in each of our branches. The Corpus Christi Geological Society has already committed $30,000 for a mural depicting the fauna and habitat that existed in our area 13,230 years ago. This mural, being created by Dinah Bowman, is based on fossil remains taken from the Swan Lake quick sand pit that was excavated in 1939 near Ingleside, Texas. This pit contained the exact same fauna that was found in the La Brea Tar Pits in California. These fossils are on display in the University Of Texas Memorial Museum on the UT Campus in Austin, Texas. This mural will be placed on the wall in the children’s section of the newly renovated Northwest Branch Library on McKinzie road near IH – 37 Highway. There will also be a sizeable fossil attached to the mural. The plan is to reproduce the mural on posters to be given to all our schools, and the Library is developing a children’s coloring book with each page containing one of the animals and a short quiz to be completed by the users. We have purchased a large limestone block containing a fossil fish – Diplomystus to go in the new Garcia Branch Library near Kaffie Middle School, and we are working on ideas for the Main library and the other branches.

The Corpus Christi Geological Society Historical Fund was created with the vision of capturing the history of South Texas Oil & Gas Exploration through taped interviews with our earlier explorers before they became incapacitated. The project concept was initially started by Alan Costello and Sebastian Wiedmann. The committee is chaired and is continuing to be developed by Ray Govett with heavy encouragement from Joe McCullough. The original plan was to develop these interviews along with other historical facts and photos into a documentary for public television and use in schools. It soon morphed into our great publication – “WOODEN RIGS AND IRON MEN” written by the Walravens that has been such a financial success. We are now pursuing our original goal and have hired Quadrant Productions to solicit funds in the amount of $250,000 through gifts and grants from industry and foundations for this production. Our Historical Committee put up $30,000 as seed money to create a pilot video as a promotional tool. Our funds will be repaid out of proceeds from the documentary.

The Corpus Christi Geological Society Scholarship Trust was established on July 11, 1991 from funds raised by the Corpus Christi Geological Society and matched by the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies. It has annually awarded a minimum of five (5%) percent of the fair market value of the Trust property in scholarships to students who are pursuing the major study of geology in colleges and universities. Although not restricted to students of our two local major universities, Texas A & M Kingsville and Texas A & M Corpus Christi, in recent years the scholarships have gone to students of these universities. Today the fund stands at around $70,000 thus allowing us to issue a bare $3,500 to $4,000 in scholarships annually.

The proclamation from the Governing Board of GCAGS that appeared in our November Bulletin was possible because of the great volunteer work of our members that could not have been accomplished without the benefit of the funds I have just described. I urge each of you to give serious consideration to making a year end gift to one or more projects of your choice. I am especially interested in seeing our Scholarship Fund increase to a minimum of $100,000 so that we can fund at least $5,000 in scholarships annually.

I think that we can be assured that tax rates will be significantly higher next year, and there is a good possibility that deductions for charitable contributions will be further restricted or even eliminated, so this may be the best year to make your gift.

Below is a form containing the various funds with instructions on who your check should be made out to and where to send your donation.

Daniel A. Pedrotti
CCGS President

Checks made out to the Coastal Bend Community Foundation should be mailed to the Foundation at 600 Leopard Street, Corpus Christi, Texas 78473 or to the Corpus Christi Geological Society, P.O. Box 1068, Corpus Christi, Texas 78403. Any checks to the Scholarship fund should be sent directly to the Corpus Christi Geological Society, P.O. Box 1968, Corpus Christi, Texas 78403.

Congratulations are in order for the Corpus Christi Geological Society and all its members as a result of the Awards Program at this year’s Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies. CCGS received a “PROCLAMATION” by the Governing Board for GCAGS as the “2007-2008 OUTSTANDING COMMUNITY SERVICE SOCIETY”. Please see the copy of this proclamation after the President’s Letter in this bulletin.

Our very active member, Frank Cornish received two awards for his paper “Southwest Speaks Lower Wilcox Structural Complex, Lavaca County Texas” co authored by Robert W. Parker. Frank was awarded First Place in the 2007 Thomas A. Philpott Excellence of Presentation Award and Third Place in the 2007 GCSSEPM Grover E. Murray Best Paper in the Transactions”. “Way to go Frank”!

Our Texas A & M University Corpus Christi Professor and Research Associate, Dr. James R. Garrison, Jr., placed Second in the 2007 Gordon I. Atwater Best Paper Award for “The Nueces Incised Valley Revisited: A reinterpretation of the Sedimentary and Depositional Sequence Stratigraphy of Preserved Pleistocene and Holocene Valley Fill Sediments”. This paper was co-authored by Bobby McCoy.

Every member of CCGS should be very proud of these individual achievements, but especially for the 2007-2008 Outstanding Community Service Award because this didn’t happen just this year. This is the result of tremendous outreach efforts on the part of our members over a 20 plus year period starting in 1989 when Pat Nye was President. Pat initiated the BayFest GeoDig, and we have manned a booth at this event every year since. From this beginning our outreach has evolved under the direction of succeeding Boards and Presidents until today when we have the most aggressive programs of any other Society in the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies.

Dr. Thomas McGehee, Texas A & M Kingsville started the “Junior Rock Hound Precollege Outreach Program in the mid 80’s for Kingsville and surrounding areas and brought the idea to CCGS. We then bought books and copies of some of his handouts to create our own Junior Rock Hound program. We now participate in the Corpus Christi informal education educators, a program that has been held annually at the Aquarium and on the Lexington where 400 to 500 educators come by our booth to pick up flyers about the Junior Rock Hound Program and other outreach projects of our society.

To fully appreciate what we have done and why we were recognized by GCAGS, read “Report to the 2008 Annual Meeting of the GCAGS Board of directors” that appears on page 27 in this bulletin.

Those of us who attended our Luncheon Meeting on Wednesday, October 15th were treated to an outstanding, informative and inspiring paper presented by Cathy Farmer of BP/Amoco. What made this speech so inspiring is that it demonstrates what you might call finding a prospect the “Old Fashioned Way.” This huge prospect on the Gulf of Mexico Shelf started with regional stratigraphic and sedimentary studies, then regional 2-D seismic and source rock work that led management to acquire critical leases and conduct a 3-D survey that confirmed the concept. Today, the Bob Palmer, the largest platform rig, is drilling a 28,000 foot test with an AFE in excess of $150,000,000.00 on a sub salt prospect with enormous potential. Cathy pointed out the importance of the team effort involving 10 or more scientists. Cathy, a confident and obviously good geologist and manager is a role model for the type of geologists we need in the future in order to discover, develop and produce the now technically definable prospects with the incredible oil & gas resources in the off shore Gulf of Mexico. She also pointed out that the same rocks should extend on shore, though they may be quite deeper.

This exciting prospect and the way it was found and developed reinforces that the geosciences are alive, and a worthy profession to pursue. It validates the importance of the seeds we are planting through our outreach programs in schools, our scholarships, libraries and community speaking, in an effort to create interest in our profession. Now using this example and pointing to the exciting work ahead for future geoscientists we have the opportunity to again entice our top students to consider studying geology and geophysics and seek careers in our Oil & Gas industry in which people are needed to fill the open positions as our generation retires or becomes dated.

Finally, let me say that although I have not been actively involved in the great achievements of our society, I am extremely proud to be associated with such a dedicated group of individuals. There is no question that we deserve the honor recently presented to us by GCAGS. Each of you should take great personal pride in what you have done to earn this recognition.

I am looking forward to seeing you at the Corpus Christi Town Club on November 19th to hear Peter M. Duncan’s talk on “Aggressively Passive: Microseismic Opportunities Over an Oil Field’s Life.”

Daniel A. Pedrotti
CCGS President

The Kick Off BAR-B-Q was a great success, thanks to the bar sponsorship by Geosource and the arrangements by John Bockelman. It was nice to see some of our old timers as well as a number of guests. I feel that we will have a successful year after seeing such a good turnout.

Those who did attend got to see a pilot video of our proposed documentary on the oil & gas industry in South Texas the film will be prepared from the numerous interviews with our old timers and some of the information in our history book, “Wooden Rigs and Iron Men.” The purpose of the pilot is to try to use it to contact major donors to the documentary that is expected to be shown on PBS locally, state wide and eventually nationally. The cost of such a project is in the $250,000.00 range and our society has already contributed seed money in the amount of $30,000.00 that we expect to get back once the documentary is complete. We will try to show it again at our October meeting. The producers need names of contacts in major companies, foundations or other philanthropic groups who would be inclined to participate financially in such a project. If you know of anyone who might be a lead, please let us know ASAP. They will make the presentations. All you have to do is give them the names.

I am in need of volunteers to reinvigorate two of our committees that have been relatively inactive for several years - the Type Log Committee and Publications. There have been a plethora of new discoveries completed and wildcat wells drilled since our last type log was added to our collection. Type logs are extremely valuable tools for all of us locally, but very important to other explorers who want to work South Texas. They also provide a nice source of income to our society, and now that we have all of Owens’ educational initiatives and other worthwhile projects , we can make valuable use of the extra funds. I would like to have a volunteer with enthusiasm for this project and help from all of you who have logs that would be of interest.

The other committee that used to be very active is Publications. I don’t remember when our publication “Typical Oil & Gas Fields of South Texas” was published, but there have been a lot of new fields and trends discovered since then. I don’t think any of the results of our ever growing technological progress have been published in a volume similar to “Typical Oil & Gas Fields.” I need someone to compile the many interesting papers that have been presented at our meetings over at least the last decade into a publication that will be useful to all explorationists who work South Texas. This chairman would also seek new papers that have not been presented. Even if some of these are published elsewhere, we need them in a central publication that will be available for sale by the Society.

I would like to remind every one that geology students from all of our universities are invited to attend our luncheon meetings free of charge due to the generosity of Core Lab in picking up one half of the meal cost and our Society doing the rest. Of course the bar is always sponsored, and if anyone would like to help with the bar please contact Rhett Fisher.

Rick Page has done a great job in bringing Cathy L. Farmer of BP/Amoco to speak to us at our first luncheon meeting on October 15th at the Corpus Christi Town Club. Her topic is “Structural and Sedimentological Evolution of the ultra-deep gas play fairway – GOM shelf, Texas and Louisiana.” This is an outstanding paper and should be of great interest to all of us even if we do not work offshore. Don’t forget to make your reservations on time, so John Bockelman can turn in an accurate meal count.

Daniel A. Pedrotti
CCGS President

Welcome to the 2008-2009 Corpus Christi Geological Society’s New Year.

It is an honor and a challenge to be completing the 50th year of my career as a geologist in the Oil & Gas Exploration business, all of which has been spent in Corpus Christi, serving as your President and working with such a talented group of explorationists.

We have a great slate of officers, outstanding committee chairs, a very dedicated and motivated membership and great momentum at a time when our industry is again in one of its most difficult periodic cycles. Thankfully, after losing a whole generation of petroleum related personnel in the 1985 crash, enough of us have survived to keep the tradition of excellence that is a hallmark of our Society.

After a long hiatus from active participation in society matters, I was very impressed with all the enthusiasm, talent and effectiveness I observed from the membership during my term as Co-Chair of the GCAGS Convention last year. Gloria, you, Brent and all the volunteers pulled off a meeting that is the envy of all the other GCAGS member societies. And we made money too. I am now convinced that we are blessed with one of the greatest cadres of geoscientists that I have worked with during my career, and that we will more than do our share in solving the problems of energy independence for our country.

Speaking of momentum, our maps in schools has taken off like Spindletop under the incredible enthusiasm and creativity of Former President, Owen Hopkins. Not only has it been embraced by every society in GCAGS and now AAPG is considering sizeable financial support, but it is going international with prospects in both Mexico and Canada. Just look at Owen’s reports in this issue of the Bulletin. Owen is also ram roding our “Bones in Schools” and the effort to have a major geological exhibit in each of our 6 major libraries. This comes at a time when we desperately need talented geoscientists to replace the huge number of geologists and geophysicists with hundreds of years of experience who will be retiring in the next five to ten years. Thankfully we have Owen to inspire us and keep these projects moving. I hope we can maintain all of our other activities going at or improving the pace of the past few years.

One of the more interesting developments that I have observed over the past few years is the nature of the articles appearing in our bulletin, such as “Why I Became a Geologist”, “The Roar Heard Around the World” by Bernard Dietz published by Ray Govett and Owen’s “Lessons I Learned” plus all of the very informative technical papers. I want to continue these types of articles, so if you want to tell us about how you became a geologist, an exciting discovery or just a good story from your experiences in South Texas or elsewhere, please contact our editors and have them work with you. In fact I have a few stories of my own that I intend to share this year.

Vice President, Rick Paige, has already lined up some very interesting speakers for this year and John Ralph of CBGS will fill the rest. I may even do a program on how I became interested in wild sheep hunting.

So get ready for another great year by joining us on September 17th at the Natural History Museum for the kick off of our 2008-2009 programs.

Daniel Pedrotti
CCGS President