Review of the Young Professionals Seminar

The first collaborative Young Professionals (YP) event of the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain (PESGB) and GRSG, which was convened at IHS Markit in London on Thursday 16th August 2018, focused on the relationship between Petroleum Geoscience and Remote Sensing (RS).

Twenty-five people were in attendance on the evening, demonstrating a significant interest in the application of Remote Sensing for Petroleum activities. The seminar offered the perfect opportunity for Nicholas Kellerman, Shell and committee member of the GRSG, to inspire those in attendance to either pick up RS tools for the first time, or brush-up on their skillset.

The first part of the seminar engaged the attendees with a historical review of Remote Sensing and exploration; from the early mapping adventures of Shell in the 1930s right through to the concurrent challenges of big data and overcoming problems of data processing.

The complimentary nature of RS for surface and sub-surface petroleum activities was clearly outlined, and the importance of understanding the fundamentals of geomorphology and positioning a key message to the audience throughout. The second part of the seminar took the form of a DIY tutorial, where Nick demonstrated basic image processing techniques using a Landsat-8 scene covering an area of South Africa. Various open source tools and freely available data were identified, highlighting to attendees how relatively simple it can be to get started with RS.

The seminar was enjoyed by all who attended; with attendees ranging in professional and academic backgrounds and level of experience with remote sensing tools. The well-received topic and presentation indicates a promising potential for future events between the two groups. Watch this space!

Our gratitude to IHS Markit who kindly provided the venue for the event and to Nicholas Holgate, chairman of the PESGB YP committee, for organisation of the event. Any members with further interest in the event or topic should contact the GRSG committee on membership@grsg.org.uk