New virtual training for digital geoscience

Looking to skill up before 2022 hits us with… whatever 2022 is planning? We have quite a few training classes coming up — don’t miss out! Our classes use 100% geoscience data and examples, and are taught exclusively by earth scientists.

We’re also always happy to teach special classes in-house for you and your colleagues. Just get in touch.

Special classes for CSEG in Calgary

• CSEG Crash Course, 7 to 10 September — there are no prerequisites for this class.

• CSEG Doodle Train on 1 to 4 November — this class assumes you’ve taken the crash course, or have some basic Python and NumPy skills.

Public classes with timing for Americas

• Geocomputing: week of 22 November

• Machine Learning: week of 6 December

Public classes with timing for Europe, Africa and Middle East

• Geocomputing: week of 27 September

• Machine Learning: week of 8 November

So far we’ve taught 748 people on the Geocomputing class, and 445 on the Machine Learning class — this wave of new digital scientists is already doing fascinating new work and publishing new research. I’m very excited to see what unfolds over the next year or two!

Find out more about Agile’s public classes by clicking this big button:

Future proof

Last week I wrote about the turmoil many subsurface professionals are experiencing today. There’s no advice that will work for everyone, but one thing that changed my life (ok, my career at least) was learning a programming language. Not only because programming computers is useful and fun, but also because of the technology insights it brings. Whether you’re into data management or machine learning, workflow automation or just being a more rounded professional, there really is no faster way to build digital muscles!

Six classes

We have six public classes coming up in the next few weeks. But there are thousands of online and virtual classes you can take — what’s different about ours? Here’s what I think:

• All of the instructors are geoscientists, and we have experience in sedimentology, geophysics, and structural geology. We’ve been programming in Python for years, but we remember how it felt to learn it for the first time.

• We refer to subsurface data and typical workflows throughout the class. We don’t use abstract or unfamiliar examples. We focus 100% on scientific computing and data visualization. You can get a flavour of our material from the X Lines of Python blog series.

• We want you to be self-sufficient, so we give you everything you need to start being productive right away. You’ll walk away with the full scientific Python stack on your computer, and dozens of notebooks showing you how to do all sorts of things from loading data to making a synthetic seismogram.

Let’s look at what we have on offer.

Upcoming classes

We have a total of 6 public classes coming up, in two sets of three classes: one set with timing for North, Central and South America, and one set with timing for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Here they are:

• Intro to Geocomputing, 5 half-days, 15–19 Feb — 🌎 Timing for Americas — 🌍 Timing for Europe & Africa — If you’re just getting started in scientific computing, or are coming to Python from another language, this is the class for you. No prerequisites.

• Digital Geology with Python, 4 half-days, 22–25 Feb — 🌍 Timing for Europe & Africa — A closer look at geological workflows using Python. This class is for scientists and engineers with some Python experience.

• Digital Geophysics with Python, 4 half-days, 22–25 Feb — 🌎 Timing for Americas — We get into some geophysical workflows using Python. This class is for quantitative scientists with some Python experience.

• Machine Learning for Subsurface, 4 half-days in March — 🌎 Timing for Americas (1–4 Mar) — 🌍 Timing for Europe & Africa (8–11 Mar) — The best way into machine learning for earth scientists and subsurface engineers. We give you everything you need to manage your data and start exploring the world of data science and machine learning.

Follow the links above to find out more about each class. We have space for 14 people in each class. You find pricing options for students and those currently out of work. If you are in special circumstances, please get in touch — we don’t want price to be a barrier to these classes.

In-house options

If you have more than about 5 people to train, it might be worth thinking about an in-house class. That way, the class is full of colleagues learning things together — they can speak more openly and share more freely. We can also tailor the content and the examples to your needs more easily.

Get in touch if you want more info about this approach.

Lots of news!

I can't believe it's been a month since my last post! But I've now recovered from the craziness of the spring — with its two hackathons, two conferences, two new experiments, as well as the usual courses and client projects — and am ready to start getting back to normal. My goal with this post is to tell you all the exciting stuff that's happened in the last few weeks.

Meet our newest team member

There's a new Agilist! Robert Leckenby is a British–Swiss geologist with technology tendencies. Rob has a PhD in Dynamic characterisation and fluid flow modelling of fractured reservoirs, and has worked in various geoscience roles in large and small oil & gas companies. We're stoked to have him in the team!

Rob lives near Geneva, Switzerland, and speaks French and several other human languages, as well as Python and JavaScript. He'll be helping us develop and teach our famous Geocomputing course, among other things. Reach him at robert@agilescientific.com.

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Geocomputing Summer School

We have trained over 120 geoscientists in Python so far this year, but most of our training is in private classes. We wanted to fix that, and offer the Geocomputing class back for anyone to take. Well, anyone in the Houston area :) It's called Summer School, it's happening the week of 13 August, and it's a 5-day crash course in scientific Python and the rudiments of machine learning. It's designed to get you a long way up the learning curve. Read more and enroll. 

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A new kind of event

We have several more events happening this year, including hackathons in Norway and in the UK. But the event in Anaheim, right before the SEG Annual Meeting, is going to be a bit different. Instead of the usual Geophysics Hackathon, we're going to try a sprint around open source projects in geophysics. The event is called the Open Geophysics Sprint, and you can find out more here on events.agilescientific.com.

That site — events.agilescientific.com — is our new events portal, and our attempt to stay on top of the community events we are running. Soon, you'll be able to sign up for events on there too (right now, most of them are still handled through Eventbrite), but for now it's at least a place to see everything that's going on. Thanks to Diego for putting it together!

How do I become a quantitative interpreter?

TLDR: start doing quantitative interpretation.

I just saw this question on reddit/r/geophysics —

I always feel a bit sad when I read this sort of question, which is even more common on LinkedIn, because it reminds me that we (in the energy industry at least) have built recruiting patterns and HR practices that make it look as if professionals have career tracks or have to build CVs to impress people or get permission to train in a new area. This is all wrong.

Or, to be more precise, we can treat this as all wrong and have a lot more fun in the process.

If you are a 'geologist' or 'geophysicist', then you are in control of your own career and what you apply yourself to. No-one is telling you what to do, they are only telling you what they need. How you do it, the methods you apply, the products you build — all this is completely up to you. This is almost the whole point of being a professional.

The replies to Timbledon's question include this one:

I disagree with Schwa88. Poor Timbledon doesn't need another degree. Rock physics is not a market, and not new. There are no linear tracks. And there is no clear or useful distinction between rock physics and quantitative interpretation (or petrophysics, or seismic geophysics) — I bet there are no two self-identifying quantitative interpreters with identical, or even similar, job or educational histories.

As for 'now is not the time'... I can't even... 'Now' is the only time you can do anything about, so work with it.

OK, enough ranting, what should Timbledon do?

It's easy! The best way to pursue quantitative interpretation, or pretty much anything except pediatric cardiology, is to just start doing it. It really is that simple. My advice is to use quantitative methods in every project you touch, and in doing so you will immediately outperform most interpreters. Talk to anyone and everyone about your interest and share your insights. Volunteer for projects. Go to talks. Give talks. To help you find your passion, take the time to learn about some big things:

• Rock physics, e.g. the difference between static and dynamic elasticity.
• Seismic processing, e.g. what surface consistent deconvolution and trim statics are.
• Seismic interpretation, e.g. seismic geomorphology and seismic stratigraphy.
• Seismic analysis, e.g. the difference between Zoeppritz, Fatti, and Shuey.
• Statistics, e.g. when you need multilinear regression, or K-means clustering.

Those are just examples. If you're more into X-ray diffraction in clays, or the physics of crystalline rocks, or fluid properties, or wellbore seismic, or time-lapse effects, or whatever — learn about those things instead.

Whatever you do, Timbledon, don't listen to anybody ;)