Steven Constable
Professor
Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics
Steven Constable is a distinguished professor of geophysics the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego.
Constable received a B.S. with first class honors in geology from the University of Western Australia (1979) and a Ph.D. in geophysics from Australian National University (1983). In 1983 he moved to Scripps as a postdoctoral scholar and has since held various positions there.
Over the last two decades, he has led a consortium of academic and industrial partners in the development and application of robust new electromagnetic sensors for offshore petroleum exploration. During this development, his fleet of broadband electromagnetic sensors has been deployed on the seabed more than 1,000 times to map underlying geological structure using variations of both natural (magnetotelluric) and controlled-source electromagnetic fields. Encouraged by the results of this work, in 2001 several major oil companies launched new programs in marine electromagnetic exploration, and several companies now offer services aimed at detecting hydrocarbons using the controlled-source electromagnetic method. A list of current sponsors can be found at http://marineemlab.ucsd.edu/semc.html .
He is a member of the Royal Astronomical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, and the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers.
He received the 2003 G.W. Hohmann Award for Excellence in Applied Electrical Geophysics for outstanding achievement in development of electrical methods for gas or oil exploration. In 2007 the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) awarded Scripps their Distinguished Achievement Award for its work on applying marine electromagnetic methods to exploration, and in 2016 awarded him the Reginald Fessenden Award as well as making him the SEG/AAPG Distinguished Lecturer. Steve was made an AGU Fellow in 2016.
Last updated Sept 2017