Robert H Tatham
Dr. Tatham has been actively involved in all aspects of geophysical methods applied to petroleum problems for over 45 years, including 10 years as a practicing exploration and special problems geophysicist, 5 years with a Major international Contractor (Petty-Ray Geosource), 12 years supervising and managing research activities with a major producer (Texaco) and 14 years in Academia as a professor with endowed chair position (Shell Centennial Chair in Geophysics at Univ. of Texas-Austin).
His research activities have included all aspects of seismology applied to exploration, development and production of hydrocarbons, with a focus on the interpretation and analysis of seismic data to extract rock, reservoir and fluid properties. Recent activities have expanded these efforts to include characterization of resource shales to optimize the identification of the most productive parts of the shales.
Currently organizing a Microseismic focused project with two other UT seismologists to numerically simulate microseismic data for a variety of subsurface conditions and fracture mechanisms. The philosophy is that we have made tremendous progress in analyzing microseismic data, but in many cases, lack sufficient knowledge of the subsurface (ground truth) to adequately evaluate the accuracy of the results. This lack is illustrated by examples of different analyses of the same data yielding significantly different results. The numerical methods proposed are fully elastic and allow for detailed variations in subsurface and fracture parameters. See http://www.jsg.utexas.edu/microseismic for details.
Areas of Expertise
Dr. Tatham's research is presently on interpretation and analysis of multi-component seismic data. In particular, by considering both seismic P-wave and S-wave data, many of the effects of solid rock properties and pore-fluid properties may be separated.
Several graduate students, at both the M.S. and Ph.D. level, were advised over the last 15 years. For the most part, these students are working on research projects involving Analysis of Seismic Reflection Data to extract rock and fluid properties, particularly for characterization of resource shales. Gas and Oil shales are becoming a major component of exploration and exploitation in North America, and characterization to guide drilling utilizing surface observations is a major research target.
Graduate Students
Patrick J Gustie , M.S., expected 2014 (Supervisor)
Makoto Sadahiro, M.S., 2014
(Co-supervisor)
UT-DGS
Jacqueline Maleski, M.S., 2014
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Meijuan Jiang, Ph.D., 2014
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Mustafa Al Waily, M.S., 2014 (Committee Member)
Lauren Becker, M.S., 2014
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Jason Stevens, Ph.D., 2013
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Terence Campbell, Ph.D., 2013
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Geophysicist, ConocoPhillips
Sharif Morshed, M.S., 2013
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Mohammed Alhussain, Ph.D., 2013
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Geophysicist, Saudi Aramco
Yang Xue, Ph.D., 2013
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Kumar Sundaram Das, M.S., 2013
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Yi Tao, Ph.D., 2012
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Alexander Lamb, M.S., 2012
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Salah Al-Hadab, M.S., 2012
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Stephen Graf, M.S., 2012 (Committee Member)
Shannon Lynn Cavanaugh, M.S., 2012 (Committee Member)
Kwon Taek Oh, M.S., 2012
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Alireza Shahin, Ph.D., 2011
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Carey Joy, M.S., 2011
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Emily Graham, M.S., 2011 (Committee Member)
Stefan Punnette, M.S., 2011 (Committee Member)
Na Shan, M.S., 2010
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Diego Valentin, M.S., 2010
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Fang Ye, M.S., 2010
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Jeffrey Kao, M.S., 2009
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Anisa Perez, M.S., 2009
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Chunlei Chu, Ph.D., 2009
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Samik Sil, Ph.D., 2009
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Abdulaziz AlMuhaidib, M.S., 2008
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Tiancong Hong, Ph.D., 2008
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Hee-Jae Lee, Ph.D., 2008
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Rodolfo Hernández, M.S., 2008 (Committee Member)
Tricia Alvarez, M.S., 2008 (Committee Member)
Daniel Smith, M.S., 2008 (Committee Member)
Ali Al Jadher, M.S., 2008 (Committee Member)
Patricia Yu, M.S., 2007
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Emily Pangborn, M.S., 2007
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Kevin Bain, M.S., 2007
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Nedra Bonal, Ph.D., 2007
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Nathan Simmons, Ph.D., 2007
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Reeshidev Bansal, Ph.D., 2007
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Hugo Castellanos, Ph.D., 2007
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Margaret Kroehler, M.S., 2007 (Committee Member)
Engin Alkan, M.S., 2007 (Committee Member)
Rosalba Mendoza-Veloza, M.S., 2007 (Committee Member)
William Burnett, M.S., 2007 (Committee Member)
Samarjit Chakraborty, M.S., 2007 (Committee Member)
G. Russel Young, M.S., 2007 (Committee Member)
Jason Gumble, Ph.D., 2006
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Eric Lyons, M.S., 2006
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Matt McDonald, M.S., 2006
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Kathryn Young, M.S., 2006
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Chandan Kumar, Ph.D., 2006
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Arturo Contreras, Ph.D., 2006
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Wei Gao, Ph.D., 2006
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Patricia Montoya, Ph.D., 2006
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Maika Karen Gambús-Ordaz, Ph.D., 2006
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Jaime Hernandez, M.S., 2006 (Committee Member)
German Maerletti, M.S., 2006 (Committee Member)
Kimberly Kumar, M.S., 2006 (Committee Member)
Sharon Goehring, M.S., 2005
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Carmen Gomez, M.S., 2005
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Dhananjay Kumar, Ph.D., 2005
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Sean Sullivan, M.S., 2005 (Committee Member)
Jason Stine, M.S., 2004
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Armando Sena, Ph.D., 2004
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Xinxia Wu, Ph.D., 2004
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Chengshu Wang, Ph.D., 2003
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Matthew Morris, M.S., 2003
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Imtiaz Ahmed, Ph.D., 2003
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Alejandro Escalona, Ph.D., 2003
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Pedro Gomez-Cabrera, Ph.D., 2003
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Jorge Barrios-Rivera, Ph.D., 2003
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Yong-Joon Park, Ph.D., 2003
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Shanty Ilona, M.S., 2003 (Committee Member)
Renie Mekarsari, M.S., 2003 (Committee Member)
Adrian Badescu, Ph.D., 2002
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Anubrati Mukherjee, Ph.D., 2002
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Hasan Sarikaya, M.S., 2002 (Committee Member)
Fernando Cerda, M.S., 2001
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Maria Castillo, Ph.D., 2001
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
Saleh Al-Saleh, M.S., 2001 (Committee Member)
Helena Zirczy, M.S., 2000
(Supervisor)
UT-DGS
Brian Schlottman, Ph.D., 2000
(Committee Member)
UT-DGS
| Year | Semester | Course | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Spring | GEO 384T | Seismic Lithology |
| 2014 | Spring | GEO 394 | Rsch In Exploration Geophysics |