Paleonet: My opinion (and you're welcome to it)

[Aidan Karley]

In article <mailman.1.1203595211.1134.paleonet at nhm.ac.uk>, Roy Plotnick 
<plotnick at uic.edu> wrote:
> A related weakness is the marked decline of paleontology
> at major oil companies. At one time, most companies had large
> in-house paleontological programs for paleoecology and biostratigraphy,
> including associated databases and collections.
> Today, many of these programs are either gone or much smaller,
> with much of the work being contracted out. Farley & Armentrout
> (2000) noted that the number of paleontologists employed
> at major oil companies declined 90% from 1985 to
> 2000! They also pointed to the accompanying decline of oil
> company support for paleontological research at universities and
>
       I've got plenty to debate about this, but I think it would be 
better to wait until the follow-up piece is in public, to avoid needless 
re-hashing.
       
       The broad brush of my initial comment is - sure, the oil companies 
themselves don't employ many bug watchers themselves (Shell UK has only 3 
or 4, for example). But they don't do much microscope time themselves - 
they'll typically have around one bug watcher out on a rig somewhere 
(with several projects in work at any one time), with however many others 
slaving away over a hot microscope in North Wales on background work.
       
       I'd be more concerned over the prospect of a Tunguska-esque event 
over North Wales seriously decimating the European bug watching 
community. There's a strange concentration of companies working in this 
field in that area - more than the "Robertson's" effect could 
realistically explain.

       But we'll leave it for now, until the follow up is published. For 
what it's worth, my look-ahead is to go out to a rig for Shell on the 
28th or 29th, along with two bug watchers from a N.Wales company. I 
wonder who it'll be? 
       Which reminds me ... 
http://www.giantmicrobes.com/uk/products/redtide.html
       Is this a dinoflagellate I see before me? Close enough!
-- 
 Aidan Karley, FGS
 Aberdeen, Scotland
 Written at Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:59 GMT, but posted later.