 |
| 1930 |
On March 11,
twenty-nine men and one woman met in Houston at the University
Club to found the Society of Economic Geophysicists. Donald C.
Barton was elected the first president. On 20 May, a
constitution and bylaws were adopted, and two papers were
published in mimeograph form. |
|
|
| 1931 |
The group's
name was changed to Society of Petroleum Geophysicists (SPG),
and the first convention was held in conjunction with AAPG. |
|
|
| 1932 |
SPG became the
"Division of Geophysics of the AAPG." The Society continued to
meet with AAPG through 1955. |
|
|
| 1936 |
The first
issue of Geophysics
published. |
|
|
| 1937 |
Once again the
name of the organization was changed, this time to Society of
Exploration Geophysicists. Accepted as an Affiliated Society
by AAPG |
|
|
| 1939 |
Patents
section first appeared in Geophysics. |
|
|
| 1940 |
First
Cumulative Index published. Membership: 892. |
|
|
| 1946 |
Constitution
amended to permit establishment of Local Sections. |
|
|
| 1948 |
Council
created and met in Denver. First Local Sections chartered.
Student Sections formed. Best Paper Award first presented. |
|
|
| 1950 |
First
Distinguished Lecture Tour organized. Membership: 2566. |
|
|
| 1951 |
EAGE
organized. Back issues of Geophysics
available on microcards. |
|
|
| 1952 |
SEG Crest
adopted. |
|
|
| 1953 |
Geophysical Prospecting appeared
as a quarterly. |
|
|
| 1954 |
Executive
Committee voted to separate the Annual Meeting from the AAPG.
First Associate Editors appointed to assist the Editor of
Geophysics. |
|
|
| 1955 |
SEG held its
last joint meeting with AAPG, then celebrated its twenty-fifth
anniversary with a separate meeting in Denver. |
|
|
| 1956 |
The first
Yearbook was published, and
SEG's scholarship program was initiated with $12 125
distributed to thirteen students. |
|
|
| 1960 |
A silver
anniversary issue of Geophysics
published listing "classic" papers of the first twenty-five
years of the journal, which were selected by a panel of
judges. Membership: 5724. |
|
|
| 1961 |
The SEG Medal
Award (later renamed in honor of Reginald Fessenden) was
created. |
|
|
| 1965 |
When the SEG
staff moved into the Society's new building in June, there
were 5837 members. |
|
|
| 1968 |
SEG accepted
an invitation from the Society of Petroleum Engineers to
become a cosponsor of the Offshore Technology Conference. R.
E. Sheriff published in Geophysics,
the "Glossary of terms used in Exploration Geophysics," the
precursor of his Encyclopedic
Dictionary. Sheriff received the Virgil Kauffman Gold
Medal in recognition of the glossary. |
|
|
| 1969 |
Emeritus
Membership was established in 1970. Membership: 7306. |
|
|
| 1971 |
The fiftieth
anniversary of the reflection seismograph was observed at the
Midwestern Meeting in Oklahoma City with the dedication of a
monument near the site of the tests of that technique. |
|
|
| 1972 |
The first book
published jointly with AAPG,
Stratigraphic Oil and Gas Fields-Classification, Exploration
Methods, and Case Histories, appeared. It was to be
twenty-five years before the second joint publication effort
by the two societies. |
|
|
| 1973 |
Sheriff
produced SEG's all time best-seller,
Encyclopedic Dictionary of Exploration Geophysics.
The addition of three new student sections brought the total
to twenty-eight. |
|
|
| 1978 |
The Maurice
Ewing Medal Award was established as SEG's highest award. |
|
|
| 1979 |
Geophysics began monthly
publication, and fifteen Continuing Education courses were
offered. |
|
|
| 1980 |
In the 50th
anniversary year of the Society, when the total membership
was 14 172, there were 12 319 registered at the Annual
Meeting. Eleven of the original thirty founders of SEG
attended and were honored at that meeting. That attendance
record has not been broken. |
|
|
| 1981 |
A record $4
billion was spent on geophysical acquisition and processing in
1981. More than 100 000 attended the OTC that year. |
|
|
| 1982 |
Geophysics, The Leading Edge of
Exploration, debuted in June. The SEG
scholarship program passed the million-dollar mark with awards
of $130 800. Expanded abstracts were required for all papers
presented at the 52nd Annual Meeting. |
|
|
| 1984 |
The
Geophysical Resource Center was completed and occupied. It was
dedicated the following year. |
|
|
| 1985 |
Two special
issues were published to commemorate the fiftieth year of
publication of Geophysics. A
new film about geophysical exploration,
Seeing the Unseen: Geophysics and the
Search for Energy and Minerals, was produced.
The First Annual Gulf Coast Exploration and Development
Meeting was held, and the first joint meeting of the China
Petroleum Society and SEG took place in Beijing. SEG's
membership of 19 559 was the highest total to that
point, and would remain the record for 10 years. |
|
|
| 1986 |
Shell
Companies Foundation donated $100 000 for books and
periodicals to the SEG Library in the Geophysical Resource
Center, and the building was named the Cecil and Ida Green
Tower. |
|
|
| 1987 |
Seismic Data Processing,
zdogan Y lmaz's best seller, was available at the Annual
Meeting in New Orleans. This was to become the second all-time
revenue producer behind Sheriff's dictionary. The SEG
Foundation was reorganized. |
|
|
| 1988 |
An agreement
with AAPG, SPE, and SPWLA led to the formation of an
Intersocietal Coordinating Committee. The first EAEG-SEG joint
research workshop under a new agreement to hold alternating
workshops every other year and the first ASEG-SEG joint
meeting were held. |
|
|
| 1989 |
Initiation of
the SEG Foundation Trustee Associates. |
|
|
| 1990 |
A 15-tape set
video short course, given by Oz Y lmaz and based on his
Seismic Data Processing, was
produced by Western Geophysical and offered to SEG to market.
Membership: 14 964. |
|
|
| 1991 |
Attendance at
the 61st Annual Meeting in Houston was 10 670. The Executive
Committee adopted a policy of holding a midyear meeting
annually in a venue outside North America. |
|
|
| 1992 |
Successful
meeting held in Moscow. Record income of just under $7 million
for the year. |
|
|
| 1993 |
GEOROM, a set of CD-ROMs
containing fifty-seven volumes of
Geophysics - 1936-1992 - fully searchable, was
produced. The mortgage on SEG's building, the Geophysical
Resource Center, was retired. |
|
|
| 1994 |
A nine-year
decline in membership was interrupted when gains were shown in
each category of membership. GEOROM
was expanded to include selected articles from
The Leading Edge plus
Sheriff's Dictionary, The
Cumulative Index, and Expanded Abstracts from the Annual
Meeting. An SEG Home Page, hosted by Stanford University and
maintained by volunteers led by Brian Spies, was established. |
|
|
| 1995 |
A CD-ROM of
the Expanded Abstracts of that meeting was offered at the
Annual Meeting in Houston. |
|
|
| 1996 |
The donation
of a Sun Netra Webserver to SEG by Sun Microsystems allowed
the Web site to be moved to the Business Office, enabling the
entire Internet operations to be done in-house. |
|
|
| 1997 |
The
Distinguished Instructor program was inaugurated, wherein a
selected individual presents a short course in various sites
around the globe. The first instructor is Ian Jack. A
constitutional amendment was approved which increased the
membership of the Nominations Committee from the historical
three most recent past-presidents by four members to be
selected by a prescribed method from the Sections and
Associated Societies. |
|
|
| 1998 |
An all-time
record of 1457 booths were sold for the Annual Meeting in New
Orleans. The SEG Museum was reorganized by the addition of a
Virtual Museum and Traveling Museum to the existing museum in
Tulsa. The Distinguished Educator program was launched and
Robert R. Stewart of the University of Calgary was chosen as
the first honoree. A new logo was adopted by the Council to
reflect the Society's increasingly international nature. |
|
|
| 1999 |
Despite a
turbulent year in the petroleum industry, the Annual Meeting
in Houston drew 11 103 attendees, and there were 1276 booth
sales--second-highest total ever. Also, paid membership grew
to nearly 16 000, the highest total since 1987. A major
redesign of the SEG Web site was completed, and an equipment
donation from Sun Microsystems helped prepare SEG for a bold
digital future. |
|
|
| 2000 |
SEG Annual
Meeting returns to Calgary for the first time since 1977. This
is only the third time the meeting has been held outside the
United States. Sally Zinke becomes the first woman to hold the
office of SEG President. The increasing percentage of members
residing outside the U.S. causes the International Affairs
Committee to be radically restructured and renamed the Global
Affairs Committee. Membership: 16 894.
|
|
|
| 2001 |
The SEG
Executive Committee authors a strategic vision of the future
of geophysics and SEG s role in it. While SEG's Annual Meeting
is under way in San Antonio, the terrorist attacks of
September 11 take place. The meeting proceeds with only minor
disruptions. Mary L. Fleming, director of programs at the
American Statistical Association, is selected executive
director in December. |
|
|
| 2002 |
The fourth
edition of SEG's all-time best-selling book, retitled
Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied
Geophysics to reflect the increasingly diverse
employment of the membership, is published. Attendance at the
Annual Meeting is disappointing, probably because of the
out-of-the-mainstream venue (Salt Lake City) and the travel
restrictions imposed after the terrorist attacks a year
earlier. However, the meeting has one of the all-time magical
moments of any SEG convention the multimedia presentation of
Robert Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic, which wows
hundreds of junior high students and experienced
geoscientists. |
|
|
| 2003 |
SEG membership
exceeds 20 000 for the first time, and a majority of members
lives outside the United States. |
|
|
| 2004 |
To address
income disparity among geophysicists around the world, the
Council approved a three-tiered dues structure that allows
Active membership at all three levels. Membership approaches
23 000. |
