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The evolving workplace for geophysicists

Hampson-Russell Software Services, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Corresponding author: B. Russell, brian@hampson-russell.com

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

The workplace for the geophysicist has always been changing but never as rapidly as today. In this article, I want to look at the geophysical workplace over the last 50 years and make some bold, but maybe incorrect, predictions about the future. I will then discuss the current trend of outsourcing in our business and look at its ramifications. Finally, I will finish with the question of whether there is a future for our profession.

For my mythical geophysicist, I have chosen the seismic interpreter. However, my comments pertain to virtually everyone in our profession. I also realize that the politically correct term these days is "geoscientist," but I feel strongly that within the geoscience team, there are still individuals who consider themselves "geophysicists," hence the need for an organization such as SEG. However, as Mike Bahorich has stressed in his article, geophysicists must have strong skills in a number of related geoscience and business areas.

I have chosen to consider four different eras, in 25-year intervals: the geophysicist of 1950, 1975, 2000, and 2025 (Table 1). I have chosen these four time periods in order to bracket the three major technological "revolutions" that have affected our business: the "digital revolution" of the 1960s, the "workstation revolution" of the 1980s, and the "communication revolution" of the new millennium. In brief, the geophysicist of 1950 worked exclusively in the field, the geophysicist of 1975 worked in a central office on paper sections, and today's geophysicist works on the workstation in a central office. I predict that the new technology will free the next generation of geophysicists to work anywhere they want. Let me now discuss each "revolution" in more detail, starting all the way back in 1950.

	Geophysicists past and present