Page 39 - GSATJanuary2020

Recent Digital Technology Trends in

Geoscience Teaching and Practice

Kellen L. Gunderson, R. Chadwick Holmes, Chevron Energy Technology Company, 1500 Louisiana Street, Houston, Texas, 77044, USA;
Julie Loisel, Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, Eller O&M Building, Room 810, College Station, Texas 77843, USA

ABSTRACT of study (Frey and Osborne, 2017), including quantities of available subsurface data.
Digital technology advances are rapidly geoscience. Here, we synthesize recent trends Petroleum geoscientists showed early inter-
altering the landscape of geoscience teaching in digital technology applications to geosci- est in AI, leveraging their pattern recogni-
and practice. Although geoscience has readily ence teaching and practice and discuss some tion capabilities to help detect hydrocarbon-
embraced new digital technologies in the past, challenges associated with the dynamically associated anomalies in seismic data
the simultaneous emergence of innovations changing technological environment. (Widrow et al., 1994) and define facies based
like open online courses and machine learn- on log patterns (Neri, 1997). Broader adop-
ing toolkits has greatly steepened the learning DIGITAL TRENDS IN GEOSCIENCE tion of AI technologies has only recently
curve for geoscientists of all experience lev- TEACHING accelerated, in part due to university partner-
els. Here, we discuss how these technologies The digital technology trends in geosci- ships to tackle key technical challenges,
are affecting the jobs of geoscience teachers ence education can be grouped into two business alignments with tech companies,
and practitioners by highlighting a few tech- themes: (1) new information delivery meth- and competitive crowd-sourcing to supple-
nology-related trends in these areas. We also ods in the classroom, in the field, and online; ment in-house research and development.
note the potential challenges of this new tech- and (2) updated curriculum content that Most of the ML applications in petroleum
nological environment. A holistic view of caters to state-of-the-art research and prac- geoscience have focused on seismic inter-
digital technology trends can help geoscien- tice. Virtual field trips and augmented real- pretation. Seismic interpretation software
tists position themselves for success in a ity tools are increasing student exposure to packages have historically provided semi-
future where technological advancements field locations with reduced costs (De Paor, automated tools like signal auto-trackers or
will presumably continue to occur at an even 2016). MOOCs are providing students with interpolation and gridding routines. Newer
more rapid pace. cost-effective, flexible education options to approaches are utilizing ML to interpret
choose from, thereby competing with the faults (Zheng et al., 2014), define salt bound-
INTRODUCTION classical higher-education campus life model aries (Di et al., 2018), or delineate geobodies
Digital advances have been transforming (Deming et al., 2018). based on labeling routines (Alaudah and Al
society for several decades, as exemplified The demand for more “digitally fluent” Regib, 2016). With the growing popularity
by the advent and proliferation of prominent graduates has accelerated changes in geosci- of neural network solutions and access to
technologies like personal computers, the ence curricula. Some schools now offer spe- high-performance computing resources,
Internet, and smart phones. In just the past cialized computer programming courses and advances in image segmentation and classi-
few years, there has also been a rapid expan- workshops, which often include robust sta- fication routines are now setting the stage
sion in cloud computing, high-performance tistical reviews. New majors, minors, and for interpretation as a full-volume machine-
computing, the Internet of things, massive certificates, such as geographic information assisted analysis.
open online courses (MOOCs), and machine system (GIS) or data science, are emerging
learning (ML) (Fig. 1). These simultaneous as alternatives to a traditional geoscience CHALLENGES AND CAUTIONS
changes have the potential to act as a force degree. Employers need graduates who can The incorporation of computational geo-
multiplier, creating even more rapid societal adapt to a quickly changing technological science skills into academic curricula
change than previous relatively isolated landscape. Geoscience educators must focus remains a major challenge. Additional
advances. Recent progress in artificial intel- on providing well-rounded and up-to-date resources are needed to train existing fac-
ligence (AI), when coupled with advance- course content, with expanded opportunities ulty in the newest technology and/or hire
ments in high-performance computing and to strengthen the technical competencies of new faculty whose research uses emerging
the proliferation of cloud storage, have their students. technologies. Advocating for the inclusion
brought powerful tools that were once acces- of rigorous computational geoscience
sible to only a few researchers with super- DIGITAL TRENDS IN GEOSCIENCE courses that include programming ele-
computers within the grasp of everyday PRACTICE ments, beginning in the undergraduate
software developers. This acceleration in Many practical geoscience disciplines, curriculum, seems imperative.
society’s digital transformation has the like petroleum exploration, are trying to cap- While online education has many advan-
potential to change every industry and field italize on improvements in AI and the vast tages, one drawback is the potentiral loss of

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