Geological Remote Sensing Group – GRSG

What a year 2018 proved itself to be!

We started our ‘Moving Forwards in 2018’ campaign at the start of the year. This campaign was designed to achieve a set of key objectives for the year which were our most ambitious yet. 2018 was one of busiest years we have had at GRSG HQ.

Our event schedule kicked off in March where we provided co-badge support to the Janet Watson ‘Data Explosion’ event at the Geological Society, UK. It was the first of our formal events supporting the Early Careers network and, led by GRSG Early Careers Rep, Matthew Webster of WSP it was squarely focused at young professionals.

Next up was public outreach through the Geological Society’s lecture series for which I was invited to present on the broad them of ‘remote sensing for geology’.

I selected the subject of ‘Satellite Top Trumps: The Geological Edition’ taking the audience on a whistle-stop tour through the history of key significant satellites for geology and explain the benefits each one provided. I was delighted to not only have the opportunity to present this in London but also have the chance to repeat this in Belfast in October.

2018 also saw our first ever GRSG North America: Oil&Gas Workshop which was held in Boulder, Colorado, USA during July.

This hugely successful event attracted over 90 attendees from USA, Canada, Brazil and Europe and was sponsored by a host of Oil & Gas companies and service providers. The programme showcased the wealth of new technology, ideas and developments which are focused for use in the Oil & Gas indsutry.

Over 80% of the attendees were not GRSG members before they attended the Workshop so we certainly met the objective of increasing the outreach of the GRSG into new geographical regions. We are delighted to say we will continue to support Christian Haselwimmer, our GRSG International Liaison for North America as we plan and organise future events int his region.

Further to our collaboration with the Geological Society and other special interest groups, during 2018 we also partnered with the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain (PESGB). In August, Nick Kellerman of Shell and a GRSG Committee Member presented to a group of Young Professionals to provide them with support and information from both organisations.

This year’s Annual GRSG Conference and AGM saw us return to our spiritual home of the Geological Society in London, with over 100 attendees from across the world presenting, demonstrating and sharing their ideas, technology and innovations.

We had a packed programme with additional workshops and lunchtime Live seminars which added extra value for all attendees present. This event, was a fantastic way to round off the year as we head into our 30th year and the celebration event we are planning for next year.

We also launched our new Newsletter which you may well be reading now 🙂

Our new Newsletter editors are Andries Botha of Southern Mapping and Veronika Kopackova of the Czech Geological Survey. The new digital format is designed to be a more accessible way of reading news and features from industry.

This will then be complimented by a new website, which we are working now which we hope will make life easier for existing and new members alike.

It was a long and tiring year for the whole GRSG Committee but exceedingly rewarding and my thanks to the whole team Alasdair, Xu, Ali, Matt, Veronika, Andries, Toby, Andy, Christian, David, Nick, Tom and Huma for their help in 2018.

I would also like to extend a great big thanks to Alex Gow who stepped down as our Treasurer part way through the year, Simon Block who stepped down as one of our Student Representatives and Barney Gordon for their support on the committee during their terms.

We look forward to sharing our 2019 plans!

Charlotte Bishop