AIPG-TX

Pennington and Davis, both of the Institute of Geophysics of the University of Texas at Austin.Texas. reported that Texas has experienced more than 100 earthquakes of magnitude 3 or greater since 1847. However, because the density of both seismographs and people has been very low in Texas, knowledge of the state’s seismicity is undoubtedly incomplete. The largest known earthquake in Texas occurred on Aug. 16, 1931, near the town of Valentine in Jeff Davis County. The total felt area exceeded one million square kilometers (about 400,000 square miles).

Edith Newton Wilson, President of the Energy Minerals Division of AAPG, asked: A Revolution? What’s in a name? Should we call it a transition? A convergence? A transformation? A revolution? A tipping­ point? A paradigm shift?  Consider that perhaps the name is largely irrelevant, except to sell conference tickets. There’s a radical shift afoot that affects the business model for global energy delivery and consumption. And with it comes with a wealth of opportunities for energy geoscientists, as well as an obligation for every professional society to help its members prepare for the future.

In September – October 2019, Aldrich and Shoup designed and oversaw the AAPG email-based poll of all members concerning whether or not AAPG should have a position paper and, specifically, should AAPG have a statement on anthropogenic climate change. The AAPG Executive Committee has reviewed the results of that poll and considered every comment provided by the members. We now wish to share the results of that poll with the membership. The raw numbers are shown in the table below. However, the Executive Committee spent some time to sort through the data to try and understand the distribution of responses and the demographics of those that took the time to respond.