The Society of Exploration Geophysicists: Once again, It pays to be a student member of the SEG!

Rice wins Challenge Bowl

Dean Clark, TLE Editor, SEG

2009 SEG Challenge Bowl winners Maximiliano Bezada and Amy Lasseigne of Rice University bolted from behind in both the semifinals and finals to win the fourth SEG Challenge Bowl and US$1000, Monday, 26 October 2009.

The finals were sponsored by bp, Chevron, EnCana, Total, MicroSeismic, and Noble Energy.

The event concluded a year-long competition that featured regional challenge bowls held around the world. Regional winners represented, the United States, Italy, Canada, China, Bulgaria, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates.

The presence of nine teams in Monday’s showdown “overloaded” the equipment and forced the first round to be divided into two competitions with five and four teams, respectively.

The final match against Indrajit Das and Nicholas Van Buer of Stanford was a virtuoso display of geoscience knowledge. Only seven of the 30 questions, sometimes circuitously phrased by ebullient emcee Peter Duncan, were answered incorrectly, and four of those were then correctly answered by the other team, even though the questions were deliberately made harder than in previous rounds.

Success in the first two rounds depends upon speed, the ability to “buzz in” before the other competitors. The two-team final round, however, has a different format and the key is gaining the “lead” which allows picking the category (Seismic, Geology, Unseismic, and My SEG) and answering first—with no pressure to buzz in quickly.

Stanford opened the finals with correct answers to nine straight questions, including one missed by Rice, which caused Duncan to quip, “Do you think they’re going to run the table.”