The Arctic Expedition
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August 05, 2013
In geographic coordinates, Austin, Texas lays 17°N and 44°W – Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway rests at 78°N and 15°E, only 800 miles from the North Pole. UT PGE sent 20 students and five professors to this remote Arctic location to study the unique geology.
Living with almost 24 hours of daylight, UT PGE participants exchanged 100 degree temperatures for just above freezing, and the occasional campus squirrel for free roaming animals, which included polar bears and, appropriately, reindeer.
Statoil, an international energy company headquartered in Stavanger, Norway, invited professors, graduate students, and research scientists from UT PGE and the Jackson School of Geosciences on an expedition into a remote area of the earth that requires special access from the Svalbard governor. The eight-day expedition provided an ideal teaching environment for introducing concepts important to petroleum systems worldwide.
The program participants took a boat from Svalbard into the Adventfjorden Bay to study the dramatic, varied and well-exposed rock formations. Whether it is sequence stratigraphy, sedimentology or structural geology, the accessible, large-scale rock exposures of Svalbard provide unique, world-class examples that can inform subsurface interpretations in sedimentary basins around the world and further the education of students and researchers alike.
“I enjoyed the chance to work with professors and students from a variety of disciplines; it was a fantastic learning experience,” said Kyle Smith, a UT PGE graduate student participating in the Statoil program. “The Arctic environment provided a great chance to see a plethora of outcrops, and analyzing them certainly helped improve my understanding of geology for my future career as a reservoir engineer.”
Participants were grouped in multidisciplinary teams with backgrounds ranging from geology, geophysics, drilling and petroleum technology. During daily geologic excursions, these teams worked to solve geology- and engineering-related problems.
“We have received positive feedback from Norwegian students who have participated in this trip in the past,” said Karl Johnny Hersvik, Statoil senior vice president of Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) in Technology, Projects and Drilling (TPD). “Many of the students have come to work for Statoil after graduation because of the complex and exciting projects they worked on during this trip. With our long term growth ambitions in the US and our energy partnership with UT, it seemed natural to partner with the university on such a unique opportunity to teach their students.”
Statoil and UT Austin developed a strong partnership with a $5 million, five-year interdisciplinary project that supports graduate student fellowships. Now in its second year, the program allows graduate fellows to expand innovation boundaries by exchanging data and research experiences with Statoil research teams in Houston. A reception was held at the UT Club in Austin last spring to recognize the successes accomplished in the first year of the partnership and honor the talented group of 13 fellows with an award. The event also highlighted Statoil’s important contributions to the university.
Drs. Tad Patzek and Scott Tinker, two of our nation’s prominent academic voices on energy, served as leaders on the Arctic journey.
“With the energy industry operating on an international scale, it’s critical for our students and faculty to receive exposure to formations across the globe,” said Patzek. “The department’s goal is to produce talented graduates who can go into industry to change the world with their diverse knowledge base and unique experiences.”
A reporter from The Alcalde, UT Austin's official alumni magazine, snapped photos and wrote about the experience to capture the breathtaking geographical beauty and the participants' discoveries. View the Arctic piece on The Alcalde’s website this fall and in the Nov. /Dec. issue of the magazine. The online article will feature a digitally interactive format allowing the reader to engage in the same experience as the professors and students on the trip.
