Who in the worldwide community of oil industry geophysicists today does not know of the Coherency Cube? Who has not marveled at those subsurface seismic images as crisp as satellite imagery: radial fault patterns as articulate witnesses of the stress of
     salt piercement, meandering rivers struggling to free themselves from the hangingwall lows of growth faults, point bars in the meander bends. Who does not remember those classic images first presented at the SEG Annual Meeting and published in The Leading Edge in 1995?
     "I screamed at the screen" is how Mike Bahorich describes that day in late 1993 when viewing the results of his critical experiment in bidirectional short window cross-correlation. This conjures an image of the inventor as eccentric; perhaps even of invention as a random act. This image is false. This was simply the most recent in a series of technical accomplishments during his 15 years with Amoco. A graduate of the University of Missouri and Virginia Polytechnic Institute (and proud of it!), he started in the Denver office in 1981. He was quickly recognized as one of those rare geophysical interpreters who innately understand the symbiosis of acquisition, processing, and the interpreter's challenge. His first contribution was to develop a proprietary refraction statics approach in support of exploration in the Rocky Mountains (published in Geophysics in 1982 as the ABCD method). His next was to move beyond the subjective art of seismic sequence stratigraphy to develop a rigorous data-driven approach for extracting stratigraphic information from seismic data. The result was SSAM (Seismic Sequence Attribute Mapping), a suite of seismic interval attributes. This was shortly thereafter made available to industry through Advance Geophysical and is now incorporated in Landmark's Post-Stack/PAL. Mike always persisted no matter what the obstacles. His contributions and inventions stood out because of their alignment: they addressed today's exploration problems, and they simplified the search for oil and gas.
     The next step was a move to Amoco's Research Center in Tulsa to join a newly formed sequence stratigraphy R&D group. Again the emphasis was on real data, real problems, and now they came to him from all over the world. One of these, an attempt to directly map the edges of shale diapirs in West Africa, started the thought process that led to this award. I recall the excitement vividly: the first startling displays, the rapid spread of the technology, algorithm advances from Mike's peers. Mike made a
     video, complete with animation of a Coherency Cube that was covertly shown to officials of national oil companies and government ministries around the world. The Coherency Cube was more than an advance we geophysicists were proud of. It provided a true competitive edge in business. I remember the concern over confidentiality, the patent applications, and the decision to commercialize which led to Mike's 1995 SEG presentations. The buzz got around the convention, and there was standing room only in the presentation hall. It was an exciting time during which all of us shared that sense of discovery, knew that enthusiasm and wonder that is so much a part of Mike.
     Mike moved on. He joined Apache as chief geophysicist in 1996. They quickly recognized his talent to make the difficult seem easy, to see through the status quo to new and better solutions. Now he is vice-president, Exploration Technology. He has been instrumental in the development of the Western Geophysical-Apache alliance. He understands that the interpretation process cannot be separated from the development and application of technology, that solving today's complex geophysical problems requires partnerships. Again he is changing the paradigms we geophysicists are accustomed to.
     Mike's enthusiasm is overwhelming and infectious. It is a joy and a privilege to work with him. His passion for geophysics as a tool for discovering nature's secrets never wavers. His pride and love for his wife and children are just as evident. He has significantly changed the way geophysicists interpret 3-D seismic data and the way oil industry management views our profession. He is worthy of joining the other great geophysicists who have received the Virgil Kauffman Gold Medal.

      Peter Pangman