Geology Ph.D. Student Wins Fourth Place in Student Poster Contest at AAPG Annual Convention


Poster Covered Geologic Structure and Petroleum Potential of Mexican Sector of Gulf of Mexico

Jack Kenning, a first-year Ph.D. and UH Presidential Fellowship student in the University of Houston’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, won a fourth place award at the student poster competition at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Annual Convention and Exhibition held in Salt Lake City, May 20-23, 2018.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists

The 15 graduate student posters in the competition were selected by a panel of judges from over 200 student entries. The abstracts are selected without considering the authors or institutions of the students. First through fourth place awards were given to the top posters as judged by a team of three judges.

Kenning received $500 in prize money from the AAPG Foundation along with $500 given to the AAPG student organization in the EAS department. Student posters were scored by a panel of judges based on the overall appearance of the poster, quality of data and interpretations, oral summary of the poster by the presenter, and responses of the presenter to questions posed by the judges.

Jack Kenning

Kenning's poster, entitled “Tectonic Controls on Along-strike Variations in the Bathymetry, Width, and Structural Style of the Mexican Ridges Deepwater, Fold-thrust belt, Western Gulf of Mexico,” presented a three-panel summary of one chapter of his Ph.D. dissertation that included his interpretation of seismic reflection and well data to predict the presence of hydrocarbon reservoirs in a complexly, deformed area along the eastern margin of Mexico in the Gulf of Mexico.

His study, which highlighted hydrocarbon indicators from the seismic data, is timely due to intensive exploration by Mexican and international companies which have yielded recent hydrocarbon discoveries.

Other EAS students selected for the 15-student poster competition finals included Ph.D. student Pin Lin and M.S. student Andrew Steier.

The first, second, and third place posters were presented by students from Imperial College London (UK), the University of Bergen (Norway), and the University of Oklahoma, respectively.

EAS graduate students have excelled in this AAPG annual meeting competition in 2013 (first, second, and third places), 2014 (third and fourth places), 2015 (second place), 2016 (second and third places), and 2017 (first place).

Other UH faculty and student oral and poster presentations at the 2018 AAPG meeting are listed at www.uh.edu/nsm/earth-atmospheric/news-events/assoc-meetings/AAPG/2018.php