Our Director, Steven Courteney, received training in field mapping as part of his Bachelor of Science (with Honours) in Geology at the University of Wales. After training in Glamorgan and Pembrokeshire in South Wales, in the Northern Highlands of Scotland and in the Pyrenees and Cordillera Cantábrica of Spain, Steven completed his own mapping thesis near Dufton, Cumbria, in the Pennines of Northern England.

This knowledge of field mapping was first used professionally while working as a quality controller on seismic crews in the Andes and Tierra del Fuego of Argentina. It is important that seismic lines (costing in the order of US$10,000 per kilometre to acquire) are not located along fault lines since the data obtained is not usable.

Since then the recognition of faults and accurately determining their location have been an integral part of Steven's work in the oil and gas industry. This is particularly true in relatively unexplored areas (such as Eastern Syria and Kalimantan, Indonesia) where seismic surveys cost tens of millions of US Dollars and individual exploration wells cost in excess of US$11 Million. In such circumstances the location of faults must be accurately determined in order to avoid very costly mistakes.

Steven's long experience in the oil and gas industry and the fact that he has often studied faults both in their surface expression as well as on seismic data means that he is able to better visualise a fault zone even when the surface expression is poor.

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