Students Win Top Poster Awards at Annual Africa Oil Exploration and Production Conference


Winners Include M.S., Ph.D. and Undergraduate Students

University of Houston Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences students placed first, second and third at the 15th Annual Conference on African Exploration and Production. The conference, called “Africa: What’s Next,” was jointly organized by the Houston Geological Society and the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain. The meeting was held on September 13-14 at The Westin Houston, Memorial City.

The international conference drew 300 participants and covered all aspects of African exploration and production with particular emphasis on new ideas for plays and prospects, the geology of the continent and its conjugate margins, and application of emerging technologies.

EAS Ph.D. student, Patrick Loureiro, served on the Houston Geological Society’s conference steering committee.

EAS Student Winners

First Place – Andrew Steier


Master's student Andrew Steier receives first place poster award from Houston Geological Society president John Jordan and president-elect John Adamick.Master's student Andrew Steier receives first place poster award from Houston Geological Society president John Jordan and president-elect John Adamick.A first-year M.S. geology student, Steier took first place honors and a $500 check with his poster “Fine-tuning quantitative, plate tectonic reconstructions of South Atlantic conjugate margins using a GIS compilation of geologic and geophysical information.” In his poster, he compared reconstructions and pre-rift continental fits by previous workers with his own improved reconstruction based on a new compilation of data. Steier also participated in a one-day short course by Dr. Ian Davison called "South Atlantic margins: Geology and hydrocarbon potential.” Steier is a graduate research assistant with the Caribbean Basins, Tectonics and Hydrocarbons project.

Second Place – Rasheed Ajala

Undergraduate student Rasheed Ajala receives second place poster award from Houston Geological Society president John Jordan and president-elect John Adamick.Undergraduate student Rasheed Ajala receives second place poster award from Houston Geological Society president John Jordan and president-elect John Adamick.A senior, undergraduate geophysics student working on a senior honors thesis, Ajala captured second place honors and a $300 check from the meeting organizers with his poster “Gravity modeling of the flexural response of loading the Niger and Amazon deltas onto their underlying, thinned continental and oceanic crust.” In his poster, he developed flexural models for the Niger and Amazon deltas using geophysical information on the thickness, properties and distribution of the underlying lithosphere. Ajala is also an undergraduate research assistant with the Caribbean Basins, Tectonics and Hydrocarbons project.

Third Place – Kyle Reuber

Reuber, a Ph.D. student, placed third and received a $200 check with his poster “South Atlantic conjugate margins: The significance of pre-rift, western Gondwanan, orogenic domains on syn-rift infill.” He used deep-penetration seismic reflection lines collected at matching points on the South American and African conjugate margins to show the influence of preexisting basement features on the early rifting process. Reuber also works full-time as a seismic interpreter at ION Geophysical.

The meeting is held each year alternately in Houston and London. When the meeting was held in Houston in 2014, three UH EAS students working with the Caribbean Basins, Tectonics and Hydrocarbons project also won first, second and third place in the poster competition.