News Release, Kansas Geological Survey, Nov. 17, 1998
Doveton, a senior scientist who has been at the Survey since 1972, was presented the first John Cedric Griffiths Teaching Award from the International Association of Mathematical Geologists. The award was presented at the association's annual conference in Naples, Italy, in October.
Doveton's specialty is the analysis of well logs, the electronic records of rocks encountered during the drilling of wells, particularly those in search of oil and natural gas. Well logs are used not only in searching for petroleum, but are increasingly applied to environmental and water related issues.
Doveton is a native of England, whose Ph.D. is from the University of Edinburgh. Since 1975, Doveton has taught courses on well-log analysis at KU, Kansas State University, Fort Hays State University, and Wichita State University, and for government agencies, professional scientific societies, and oil companies in the U.S., Canada, Europe, South America, and the Middle East.
In addition, Doveton is the author of three books on well log analysis, including Log Analysis of Subsurface Geology: Concepts and Computer Methods, published by Wiley-Interscience of New York in 1986.
"John Doveton was one of the first to use computers for the analysis of well logs," said John Davis, head of the Survey's mathematical geology section. "He is the creator of two of the most widely-used computer programs for log analysis."
The award is named after John Griffiths, a native of Wales who taught at Pennsylvania State University and pioneered the application of mathematical and statistical techniques to geologic problems.