HGS Scholarship Night 2025: The Day the Dinosaurs Died

HGS Scholarship Night!  Join us for the annual presentaton of scholarship money from the HGS Undergraduate Fund and Calvert Fund (graduate students), celebrating our 2025 student winners! The Night's is Chair: Fang Lin, and we welcome incoming 2026 Chair, Allison Barbato with co-host Jeff Lund.

February 10, 2025
Norris Conference Center City West, Beltway 8 and I-10, Houston
Time: 5:30 pm to 9:00 pm
Pre-Registered HGS Members $65, Non-Members $75
Student Awardees need to register by calling the HGS office.

The Day The Dinosaurs Died: Unraveling The Event That Changed the World Forever

Scholarship Night 2025 features exciting research into subsurface Cretaceous layers in the Gulf of Mexico disrupted 66 million years ago in the devastating asteroid impact in the Yucatan known as Chicxulub. The impact is known to have a wide effect on sedimentation in the entire Gulf Coast area, now recognized on seismic and well logs. The date of the impact coincides with the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. It is now widely accepted that the devastation and climate disruption resulting from the impact was the primary cause of the Cretaceous KT extinction event, a mass extinction of plant and animal species on Earth, including all non-avian dinosaurs.

Geologists Andrew Madof, and Cody Miller of Chevron USA, will co-present their subsurface multidisciplinary investigation into stratigraphic evidence of the Chicxulub geological event. Their joint talk is aiming for an enthusiastic “podcast style” on the topic that will motivate young geoscientists to work on their own research.

About the Speakers

Andrew Madof is an Earth Scientist currently working in asset development on the Leviathan field, offshore Israel. He has been employed for 15 years at Chevron in various roles of research, exploration, and development having worked in over 30 basins on 6 continents. Madof is a stratigrapher with years of experience in seismic interpretation, subsurface mapping, attribute analysis, and geophysics. He is fluent in well log interpretation, and in the creation of depositional maps, both in clastic and carbonate settings. His expertise is in nonmarine, shallow marine, and deep water settings. He has worked on research, exploration, and reservoir management projects in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Madof obtained his Ph.D in geology from Columbia University in 2010.

Aside from working on individual projects, Andrew has been a mentor to over two dozen early-career geoscientists. He has taught, as well as developed, classes in deep water stratigraphy, seismic stratigraphy, and geophysics. Andrew's primary interests are in the tectonic and climatic controls on accommodation, in the integration of geology, geophysics, and petrophysics, and in the identification and quantification of gas hydrates on seismic data.

________________

Cody Miller is a carbonate stratigrapher currently working in Global Exploration at Chevron.  He has been with Chevron for 13 years with 3 years prior experience at Talisman Energy.  Cody has held various roles of research, exploration, and asset management spanning the globe.  His expertise is in carbonate stratigraphy and sedimentology, diagenesis, exploration, and seismic stratigraphy.  He obtained his Ph.D in geology from Queens University in 2012. 

Miller has acted as Lead Researcher and project manager for lacustrine carbonate reservoir and quality prediction. Research efforts focus on recognition and differentiation of lacustrine carbonate deposits and primary controls on their development. Quality prediction, subsurface reservoir quality, is focused on determining the role of primary depositional fabrics, diagenetic modifications, Mg-Si clay formation & decay, dolomitization, and microbes in reservoir development. These efforts are designed to support exploration and development in pre-salt Lower Cretaceous reservoirs located offshore Brazil and Angola.

Thank you to our Sponsors

OEI Lunch Group In Memory of Mike Barnes

Portfolio Exploration, LLC

Thunder Exploration

Duncan DuBroff

Andrew Hampf

Richard Stinson

Chief Geologist Group In Memory of Mike Barnes

Portfolio Exploration, LLC

Brian Horn

Marie Orchard