Gibson Consulting Speaker's Bureau

It isn't really a speaker's bureau, it's just Dick Gibson and colleague Pat Dickerson, both willing to talk about geoscience to pretty much anyone who asks. Both Pat and Dick are experienced study leaders for Smithsonian Journeys and other programs for the public. Both are experts at providing intriguing scientific information in entertaining, understandable ways. The following topics are available as of Spring 2006. Other topics are possible. Formats include stand-alone 1-hour presentations, lecture series, short courses, and step-on guide service including expert lectures. For presentations away from Pat or Dick's home bases, in Austin, TX, and Butte, MT, respectively, fees range from $200 to $400 per day for any format and may be negotiable; travel expenses are not included and must be added to these fees. See also the AAPG Visiting Geologist program for visits to college geology departments. AAPG VGP visits do not carry speaking fees or most travel expenses.

Topics Available for General Audiences

Go to Pat Dickerson's talks


About Dick Gibson

Dick Gibson's Lecture Topics

Available as single lectures or as parts of seminars and short courses
    Kidney Stone MineralogyMore info
    What's the deal with Oil? More info
    What Things are Made Of: The secret geology behind everyday man-made things
                • Based on Dick's new book
                • Multiple sub-topics available (e.g., medicine, food, auto, etc.)
    History of the EarthBased on Dick's Perpetual Calendar book
                • Paid lecture includes 5 copies of the book
    Geology and Oil in the Former Soviet Union More info
    Global Warming: Views from Alaska to Iceland
    America's Oil and Mineral Dependency: Much more than Saudi Arabia
    The Oil Game: 2-4 hour role-playing experience in oil exploration and economics
    Custom talks for non-technical audiences on
    • Oil exploration: How to find an Oil Field
    • Geophysics
    • Geology of the world
    • Mineral deposits and uses
              • Talks on specific commodities, such as gold, copper, platinum, oil
    • See Also VGP topics list
 

Dick Gibson's Lecture Series and Travelogues

Available as single talks, series, short courses,
or as part of step-on guide and study leader service on educational tours

    ALASKA SERIES

                • More info
                • Assembling Alaska
                • Volcanoes, Glaciers, and Global Warming
                • Gold, Oil, and other Riches

    ICELAND SERIES

                • Fire and Ice: The Geology of Iceland
                • Hot and Cold: Climate and other mysteries
                • Rifts and Drifts: The tectonic framework
                • Spouts and Spurts: Glaciers, Volcanoes, and Geysers

    NATIONAL PARKS SERIES

                • Grand Canyon: Flat-lying rocks, spectacular scenery
                • Restless Yellowstone and the Teton Landscape
                • Glacier National Park: Glaciers, Catastrophic Floods, and Stromatolites
                • Geology of Utah's National Parks

    SOUTHWEST MONTANA

                • More information on lectures and 5-day program
                • Mining history and geology around Butte, Montana
                • The landscapes of Lewis and Clark in southwest Montana
                • Minerals in modern society: global interdependence
                • Cultural, ethnic, and mining history through Old Butte Historical Adventures and based on Lost Butte book

    NEW ZEALAND

                • The geology behind the scenery
 


About Patricia Dickerson

Pat Dickerson's Lecture Topics

Available as single lectures or as parts of seminars and short courses
    Canyons, Craters and Drifting Dunes - Terrestrial Analogues on Earth's Moon and Mars
    Field and Remote-Sensing Training for Human Exploration of the Planets
    The Big Bend of the Rio Grande - Geology and Natural History
    Rifts of the World - Volcanoes, Hot Waters & Giant Cracks in the Earth!
    This Dynamic Earth
    How to Build a Mountain Range - Andes, Himalayas, Rockies and Other Lumpy Regions
    North American Tectonic Provinces
    The Odyssey of the Argentine Precordillera - Southern North America to the Central Andes
 

Pat Dickerson's Lecture Series and Travelogues

Available as single talks, series, short courses,
or as part of step-on guide and study leader service on educational tours

    COSTA RICA SERIES

                • Bridge between Continents, Barrier between Seas
                Geological setting and origin of Costa Rica, faunal migrations
                • Volcanoes in a Fiery Chain
                Volcanoes, hot springs, active faults, tectonic setting
                • Life on the Edge -- the Pacific-Caribbean Plate Margin
                Plate margin interactions, seafloor processes, mountain-building, influences on flora, fauna, climate
                • Rising Ridges and Reefs -- the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica
                Coral reefs, uplifted marine terraces, coastal processes

    NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR SERIES

                • Fjords, Tuckamore, and the Bones of Ancient Mountains
                Landscape evolution, interactions of sea and ice, postglacial ecology and habitats
                • Hundreds of Millions of Years of Colliding Continents, Grinding Glaciers, and Pounding Surf
                Geological evolution -- two major episodes of continental collision and mountain-building,
                ancient and Pleistocene glaciations, coastal erosion

                • Ice Sculpture, Rebounding Shorelines, and Great Wandering Icebergs
                U-shaped valleys, grooves, moraines, marine terraces and uplifted benches, the travels of icebergs from Greenland and Baffin Bay
                • Earth As Powerful Dictator -- Resources, Forces and Human Activities
                Mining, whaling, fishing, lumbering, shipbuilding, harbor settlement, petroleum exploration

    SOUTHWESTERN U.S. SERIES

                • The Rio Grande Corridor - Mountains Rising, Volcanoes Exploding, and the Earth's Crust Pulling Apart
                Rifting and Rio Grande rift, Jemez Mts. volcanic complex; riparian habitats, migration paths
                and subsistence of humans, other walking and winged creatures

                • Mud and Silver, Water and Stone - Raw Materials of Southwestern History
                The San Juan Mountains and Colorado Plateau, natural resources and a millennium of control on human activities
                • The Colorado River - From the Fourteeners, through the Great Gash, to the Sea of Cortez
                Formation of the Rocky Mountains, the course of the Colorado River from the Rockies,
                through the Grand Canyon, and out to the Sea of Cortez

    ICELAND SERIES

                • The Ups and Downs of Life as a Young Island-Continent
                The dynamic landscape -- volcanoes, geysers, fissures, faults, glaciers, sandurs, place names as clues to Earth processes
                • Iceland -- Visit the Mid-Atlantic Ridge without Wearing a Submarine
                Geological evolution and active geological processes - volcanoes (including Surtsey),
                earthquake faults, fissure eruptions and fire fountains, geothermal power, possible analogues to the landscape of Mars

                • Where Ice Meets Fire!
                Glacial landforms (U-shaped valleys, hanging valleys with waterfalls, moraines);
                volcanic landforms (volcanoes, pressure ridges, phreatomagmatic cones);
                features produced by the interaction of the two (sandurs, jokulhlaups, tuyas, etc.)

    WESTERN U.S. NATIONAL PARKS SERIES

                • The Tetons and Yellowstone - Ice Sculptures and the Fire Within
                Tetons - glacial landforms, U- and V-shaped valleys, moraines, boreal ecology, mountains as agents of their own destruction; Yellowstone - hotspots, paintpots, volcanism, current activity. Features formed by interaction of volcanoes and glaciers
                • Ice Sculptures - Glacial Creations
                How to build a glacier. Alpine glaciers of the northern Rocky Mountains. Fire and ice - where volcanoes and glaciers interact
                • Mountain Islands in Desert Seas - Colorado Plateau and the Rocky Mts.
                Basin and Range Province, Colorado Plateau, the Rocky Mountains, ice age Lake Bonneville and Great Salt Lake. The dynamics of tectonic processes, water, ice - their influences on flora, fauna and human activities
                • High and Dry - Sand Seas and Drifting Dunes of the Jurassic
                Zion and the Navajo Sandstone, modern sand seas, dune morphologies, wind regimes
 



Richard I. Gibson, Gibson Consulting - 301 North Crystal St. - Butte, Montana 59701 - Phone/Fax: 406-723-9639 - E-mail