The salt genie has created the fantastically complex geology of the Gulf in the process, facilitating the migration and entrapment of hydrocarbons. The tricks played by the genie challenge us intellectually, as explorers and as scientists, and make our job a continuing adventure, where something new is learned almost every day. An exploration geoscientist consumes coffee and turns it into plausible geological models that predict where relatively tiny volumes of precious liquids have come to rest after 140 million years of traveling through a seething pot of moving rock and salt. The Gulf of Mexico, considered a mature exploration province, has produced billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas during the last 80 years. Yet as we explore for hydrocarbons under the Gulf of Mexico, we know that huge reserves still remain, deeper in the rock, beneath canopies of migrated salt, and beneath still deeper water.
Natural hydrocarbon seeps on the sea floor of the deep Gulf pique the explorer's imagination.
As I try to imagine the Jurassic framework of the Gulf of Mexico, I think back on my time at URI in the early 1970's and the diversity of learning experiences and variety of disciplines presented to me. I am grateful that I took advantage of what was offered and grateful to the faculty and students who assisted me on the road to becoming a scientist. At GSO the enthusiasm I've always had for studying the earth and its water masses was heightened, and I acquired the technical skills and professional experience necessary to turn my enthusiasm into a vocation. I would advise late 1990's students preparing to embark on careers as scientists to work toward developing a strong base of knowledge in more than one field, as seemingly disparate as chemical oceanography and marine geophysics, for example. Also I would recommend specialization in not one, but two or three technical areas related to those fields.