About Dick Gibson

Richard I. Gibson's specialty is geologic and tectonic interpretations of gravity and magnetics for hydrocarbon exploration, especially integrated analyses of continent-scale data sets. He has significant experience in the former Soviet Union, western United States, Africa, Latin America, and China, as well as other locations around the world.

His most recent passion involves bringing geological education to the general public, and he accomplishes this as a Study Leader for Smithsonian Journeys around the world, and at his home in Butte, as a guide with Old Butte Historical Adventures. He serves on the advisory board of the Clark Fork Watershed Education Project, a science literacy effort in western Montana, and is the author of History of the Earth and What Things Are Made Of (forthcoming).

Dick Gibson was trained as a geologist and mineralogist at Indiana University (B.S. 1971) and the University of California at Davis. After four years of mineralogical analysis of kidney stones, he started his oil industry career in 1975 with Aero Service Corporation in Houston. At Gulf Oil's Technical Services Center he performed geological interpretations of gravity, magnetic, and seismic data from around the world, and helped teach Gulf's in-house gravity and magnetics school. One recommended exploration location in Nevada was the site of the later discovery of Grant Canyon oil field. He was Director of Gravity and Magnetics for Everest Geotech, Inc., (Houston and Denver) from 1984-89, and since 1989 he has had his own consulting firm, Gibson Consulting, for 10 years in Golden, Colorado, and now in Montana. He has taught an industry short course in gravity and magnetic data interpretation in Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Houston, Midland, Bloomington (Indiana), London, and Dehra Dun (India).

Gibson is co-founder and past-president of the Tobacco Root Geological Society and presently serves as the Society's co-editor. He published Life After Gulf, an alumni newsletter for ex-Gulf Oil employees, from 1984-91. He has interpreted gravity and magnetic data for the 48 states in a comprehensive, play and prospect oriented Basement Tectonic Interpretation of the United States (available on a non-exclusive proprietary basis), as well as proprietary interpretations of the Gravity Maps of Africa and South America for a client. He interpreted the Magnetic Map of the Soviet Union during 1990, and it has been sold to numerous oil companies around the world. He assisted at the University of Arkansas' Geophysical Field Exercise in Montana (1984-88), and he also served as an Instructor for Indiana University's 6-week Geological Field Course in Montana, as well as for G329, an environmental sciences field course, from 1989-2002. Gibson is the author or co-author of 12 technical papers. In 1994, he completed a book entitled History of the Earth, a layman's guide to Earth history in the form of a 366-day perpetual calendar.

In addition to his work as a geophysicist, Gibson has been a half-time consultant for Argonne National Laboratory (Chicago). Most of his work involved geological and stratigraphic interpretation and integration for an Expedited Site Characterization at the Pantex Nuclear Weapons Plant, Texas. He was a member of the AAPG Committee on Geophysical Integration, and was co-editor of the AAPG-SEG book, Gravity & Magnetics Exploration Case Histories. Gibson was a member of the Indiana University Geological Sciences Department's external Advisory Board from 1977-2003, and served as its president in 1999-2000.

After four years as the Resident Manager at the IU Geologic Field Station in Montana, in 2003 Gibson moved to Butte, MT, where he served as the Education Director for the World Museum of Mining from 2003-2005.

Other interests include photography (with a few commercial sales), hiking, and collecting way too much stuff of all sorts.

Full Resume

About Gibson Consulting

Gibson Consulting is a sole proprietorship of Richard I. Gibson, a geologist and geophysicist with more than 35 years of experience. The company provides interpretive geoscience services, focused around, but not limited to, gravity and magnetic data in exploration and environmental problems, as well as training programs in these areas. Our products all have, we feel, significant “value added”. We do not believe in charging big bucks for copying existing things or re-hashing the literature; in almost all of our studies, we add interpretation and integration. Our experience is world-wide, but one of our main areas of interest since 1989 has been the Soviet Union. In connection with our Soviet Union studies, we have no arrangement with any Soviet entity to sell their data; our work is our own interpretation of such data, or, in some cases, re-casting published information in a more usable form (Rapid Research Services) and integrating it with other interpretations. When diverse data exist in relatively inaccessible or differing forms, one of our goals is to create products that make such data more useful and comprehensive (e.g., Exploration Atlas of Turkmenistan).

Recent projects have included numerous regional tectonic studies of rifted margins of the world, using satellite-derived gravity data, and prospect-oriented work in Nevada and Kentucky.

Gibson Consulting is a Montana company based in Butte, established in 1989 (originally in Golden, Colorado). Dick Gibson is also the former resident manager at the Judson Mead Geologic Field Station of Indiana University, where he taught (for free) in the summer field programs for 14 years.