Instructors
Burr A. Silver PhD., field trip leader, developed this course and started offering it to the petroleum industry in 1980 under the auspices of Olympic Exploration & Production Company. More than 475 scientists have attended. In the 28 years he has been leading the seminar, he has made significant revisions in the areas of study, textbook and workshops that accompanies the course as well as visual aids presented.
Dr. Silver is an explorationist with more than 40 years of experience. He received his Ph.D. from the prestigious University of Washington in Seattle. His industrial expertise includes CITIES SERVICE RESEARCH CO., JERSEY PRODUCTION RESEARCH CO. AND EXXON USA. Silver was a member of the faculties of Arizona State University and the University of Oklahoma, and adjunct professor at the University of Houston. He organized and taught several exploration training courses presented to AMOCO, SUN, CONOCO, AND GULF. In 1979 he founded Olympic Exploration and Production Company and has been president since its inception. Olympic’s headquarters are in Granbury, TX, a suburb of Ft. Worth.
Nigel Watts, PhD., a petroleum geologist with twenty eight years of experience, contributes his time both in workshops and the ocean classroom. He has worked in the exploration, production and reservoir engineering groups of a major multi-national oil company as well as three large Canadian Independents. His area of expertise is the exploration for and the development of carbonate reservoirs in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. For several years he was involved in the geological characterization of Devonian reefs for EOR schemes. His experience of ancient carbonate sequences in the US, Indonesia, Australia, Angola, Great Britain and Europe as well as modern carbonates in Jamaica, Shark Bay – Western Australia and Belize adds greatly to the dynamics of this course. He has taught in-house short courses on carbonate sedimentology as well as field seminars in the Devonian reefs in the Canadian Rockies.