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Introduction

We were born in 1930, a few months after the disastrous stock market crash in 1929. A worldwide depression followed. Both the oil industry and SEG had growing pains, but we survived childhood and our teenage years to celebrate our 25^th anniversary with our first separate convention in Denver, USA. It was followed by 25 years of growth.

The 50^th year celebration set an attendance record at the 1980 Annual Meeting in Houston. President Milo Backus thrilled us by leading the parade at the rodeo on a spirited horse. That he completed that ride is a testament to the survivability of geophysicists. It entertained an enthusiastic crowd and heralded an unprecedented few years of record-breaking prosperity for the oil industry. Of course, there was a penalty to be paid and it happened in 1985. Oil companies calculated the break-even price of oil needed for survival as the price of crude dropped below US$10/bbl. Exploration was delayed, postponed, or cancelled. Service companies re-evaluated their business plans, stacked field crews, and laid off personnel. These were some grim years for petroleum-oriented geophysicists and for SEG, but the profession and the society endured and now, 75 years after the successful startup, we celebrate our history in this special publication and look forward to the next 25 years and the technical advances that will be needed to satisfy the world's energy requirements.

This is not the first such SEG publication, a fact that made our editorial work easier. Three important predecessors were linked, not to the anniversary of SEG itself, but to the 25^th and 50^th anniversaries of GEOPHYSICS. These included The Silver Anniversary Issue of GEOPHYSICS (February 1960) and two huge issues (both in the range of 600 pages) in November and December 1985 which celebrated that journal's 50^th anniversary. SEG's 50^th Anniversary was exhaustively treated in the November 1980 issue of GEOPHYSICS which included nearly 100 pages on the history of the society and the evolution of the most prominent geophysical methods of that era.

SEG@75 is, to some extent, a continuation of that issue of GEOPHYSICS—particularly the history of SEG by Clark and the updates on seismic (Lines), gravity and magnetics (Millegan), and electromagnetics (Nabighian and Macnae). These have been complemented in this publication by articles on near-surface (Steeples) and reservoir (Pennington) geophysics. These were niche areas in 1980 but, over the succeeding 25 years, have matured into very important (and even dominant) parts of our profession. Another complementary article in this issue, one providing a unique perspective on our history, is the review of SEG finances by Sumner (our 2002–03 secretary-treasurer) which makes a solid case that SEG's history can be divided into three distinct eras.

Exploration geophysics is not, of course, synonymous with reflection seismology but it became the most popular technique at just about the time that SEG was founded and it has ever since retained that title without serious challenge. Consequently, this publication devotes many pages to the history of its three main areas—acquisition, processing, and interpretation. Dragoset demonstrates the incredible advances in the first two areas by contrasting the first reflection survey in 1921 with the typical survey of 2005. Although most SEG members think of themselves as primarily interpreters, the history of this part of the process has not received the attention it merits (e.g., it was not singled out for special attention in the 1980 special issue). We have attempted to correct that oversight by offering two views of its evolution—Roden's assessment of how the interpreter's toolkit has been created and Herron's description of an interpreter's typical day (hint—it's not what you think but I'm not going to give it away here).

Thanks to the foresight of its founders, SEG has always been an international society but there is no question that it was primarily oriented toward the United States throughout most of its 75-year history. That changed dramatically in the last 25 years and, in fact, the majority of SEG's membership now lives outside North America. This "globalization" of SEG, which could well be the dominant issue in our next 25 years, is analyzed in the article by Burianyk.

All of these articles more or less bring us up to where we are, as a society and as an industry, in 2005. Some possibilities on where we will be in 2030, our 100^th anniversary, are the subject of Jack's concluding article.

Interspersed among these pages are pictures of our history (grouped by decades) and some brief comments by many of our former presidents about the key decisions made during their term of office.

Special thanks to the authors who have made heroic efforts to meet the deadlines set by the ever-capable (and demanding) editor-in-chief, Dean Clark. Without these dedicated people we wouldn't have this issue and the society would be the loser.

This Article Abstract Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Lawyer, L.C. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation