Mark A. McCaffrey

President and Co-founder

Dr. McCaffrey received his B. A. degree (1985) from Harvard University, magna cum laude with highest honors in geological sciences, and his Ph.D. (1990) in geochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program. Prior to co-founding OilTracers, Mark spent 10 years at Chevron and Arco solving a variety of oil exploration and production problems. Mark is a California Registered Geologist (License #5903), a Texas Professional Geoscientist (License #350), and an AAPG Certified Petroleum Geologist (Certificate #5339). He is a senior or co-author of 30 articles on petroleum exploration, reservoir management, oil biodegradation, hazardous waste remediation, paleoenvironmental reconstruction, and marine chemistry. Mark was the 1995 recipient of the Pieter Schenck Award from the European Association of Organic Geochemists for "outstanding work on biomarkers in relation to paleoenvironmental studies and petroleum exploration." In 1998, with project team members, Mark received the Arco Award of Excellence "for developing a new charge and migration model for the Brookian petroleum system, allowing improved charge risk assessment for prospects on the Central North Slope of Alaska. Mark was a 2001-2002 Distinguished Lecturer for the Society of Petroleum Engineers, and was the Chairman of the 2002 Organic Geochemistry Gordon Conference. Mark was 2006-2007 Chairman of the Organic Geochemistry Division of the Geochemical Society. His detailed CV can be viewed by clicking here. Contact Dr. McCaffrey at mccaffrey@oiltracers.com.

Jeremy E. P. Dahl

Secretary and Co-founder

Dr. Dahl received his B. A. (Geology) from the College of Wooster , his M.A. from Rice University (Geology), and his Ph.D. (Geology) from UCLA. A Fulbright Scholar and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Jeremy's Masters work was on the Greenhouse Effect, and his Ph.D. work was on the effects of natural irradiation on the organic matter of the Alum Shale, Sweden. Prior to co-founding OilTracers, Dr. Dahl developed a variety of geochemical techniques both during his 8 years with Chevron Research and in his present position at Stanford University. These techniques include the indirect determination of source-rock quality from generated oils and the estimation of oil-to-gas conversion factors from diamondoid concentrations in oils and gas condensates. A senior or co-author of more than 30 publications, he has also written proprietary geochemical studies on most of the major petroleum basins of the world during his tenure at Chevron and subsequently as a consultant. His current research interests at Stanford include reservoir geochemistry, biodegradation and diamondoids. Dr. Dahl's detailed CV can be viewed by clicking here. Contact Dr. Dahl at dahl@oiltracers.com.

Mark Beeunas

Vice-President and Senior Project Geochemist

Mark Beeunas has over 17 years of oil industry experience developing and applying geochemical methods for reducing risk in oil and gas exploration and increasing production in field development. Mark received his B. S. degree (Geology, 1980) and his M. S. degree (Geology, 1984) from Arizona State University. His Masters thesis documented the presence of land plants across a Precambrian sub-aerial exposed surface using carbonate carbon and oxygen isotope compositions. While at Arizona State, Mark operated and maintained stable isotope mass spectrometers, built vacuum prep-lines and developed methods for determining oxygen and hydrogen isotopic compositions of fluid inclusions. Prior to joining OilTracers, Mark spent 17 years at Chevron (ChevronTexaco). While at Chevron Petroleum Technology Company in La Habra, California, Mark's research on hydrocarbon gas isotope compositions was applied to numerous exploration and production problems. Projects included developing methods for predicting the presence of down-dip oil, assessing reservoir continuity, and determining the source and thermal maturity of gases. At ChevronTexaco's New Orleans Deepwater Business Unit, Mark initiated a geochemistry sampling and analytical program for Chevron's first deepwater wells, greatly benefiting reservoir continuity evaluations. He received a Special Recognition Award from Chevron (1996) for fingerprinting and correlating oils in the Deep Water, Gulf of Mexico. Mark's detailed CV can be viewed by clicking here. Contact Mark Beeunas at beeunas@oiltracers.com.

David Baskin

Senior Project Geochemist

David Baskin has more than 30 years experience in the petroleum industry and has made numerous internationally recognized contributions to exploration and production geochemistry. He received a B. S. degree in Geology from San Jose State University and continued graduate studies at both California State University at Fullerton and California State University at Long Beach. In addition to working for several years as a well-site geologist for Exploration Logging Inc., he completed nearly 30 years of service at Chevron's research facility in La Habra, California. Dave spent many years as an organic petrologist and source-rock geochemist. He helped develop an analytical program that integrated kerogen microscopy, pyrolysis, and elemental analysis data to evaluate the generative potential and generative history of source-rocks. David also has extensive experience in reservoir geochemistry where he developed techniques to predict type (gas vs. oil) and quality (API gravity) of oil accumulations, prior to testing. These techniques are discussed in some of his numerous publications. David has also made significant contributions in correlating oils from continuous reservoirs using gas chromatography. He received a Special Recognition Award from Chevron (1996) for fingerprinting and correlating oils in the Deep Water, Gulf of Mexico. Dave is also recognized for his expertise in interpreting Light Hydrocarbon data (C7 Analysis), and for his special interest in correlating biodegraded oils and oils contaminated with synthetic drilling mud additives. He is currently a member of AAPG, SEPM, GSA, and TSOP. His detailed CV can be viewed by clicking here. Contact Dave Baskin at baskin@oiltracers.com.

Brooks A. Patterson

Senior Project Geochemist

Brooks Patterson received his B.A. degree (Earth Science, 1977) from California State University Fullerton and M.S. degree (Geology, 1984) from University California at Riverside. He has more than 29 years of petroleum industry experience with ChevronTexaco, which included operation of state-of-the-art geochemistry instrumentation, development of hardware and technical methodologies, and interpretation of source rock, oil, gas, and water data. While working for Chevron's oil field research company, Brooks participated in the field trial of the Rock-Eval pyrolysis instrument and consulted with the developers of the US-designed-and-built Rock-Eval II instrument. He also participated in the development Chevron's oil fingerprinting techniques and software, which put Chevron in the lead in reservoir geochemistry. As a geochemist he has completed numerous source rock and reservoir geochemistry studies of Congo, Angola, Nigeria, United Kingdom, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and US oil fields. He carried out numerous allocation studies in San Joaquin Valley, California, providing accurate data in steam flood monitoring of commingled Antelope and Belridge diatomite reservoirs. Between 1998 and 2002 Brooks supervised geochemists, palynologist, and technicians in a state-of-the-art laboratory located in a remote area outside Lagos, Nigeria. The laboratory successfully resolved exploration, reservoir geochemistry, and environmental problems with high-quality analysis of rocks, oils, and waters and interpretation of data. Brooks' detailed CV can be viewed by clicking here. Contact Brooks Patterson at patterson@oiltracers.com.

Kate S. Weissenburger

Senior Petroleum Systems Analyst

Kate Weissenburger received her B.S degree (Geology, 1979) from the University of Michigan and her M.S. degree (Geology, 1982) from the University of Wyoming. Prior to joining OilTracers LLC, Kate worked 22 years at ConocoPhillips and 3 years as an independent consultant.  For nearly 20 years, she has specialized in the development and application of methods for the identification and reduction of exploration and development risk factors on projects in diverse worldwide locations.  Her analytical focus is organic geochemistry, multi-dimensional geochemical basin modeling and surface geochemistry.  Her expertise includes integration of organic geochemistry with PVT, flow assurance and petrophysical data in reservoir characterization studies, database design/organization, oil, gas and source rock characterization and correlation using bulk property and molecular attributes and 2D and 3D forward modeling of hydrocarbon generation, expulsion and migration using state-of-the-art PetroMod and MPath modeling software.  Her other specialty areas include play- and prospect-specific hydrocarbon fluid inversion studies, hydrocarbon source rock evaluation and prediction and risk analysis of petroleum systems elements.  In addition to numerous company reports, she is a senior or co-author of 17 articles on petroleum geochemistry, basin modeling, and hydrocarbon surface geochemistry surveys.  Kate was the 1991 recipient of the A.A.P.G. Jules Braunstein Best Poster Award for her paper “Caveats and pitfalls in surface light hydrocarbon surveying. Amer. Assoc. Petrol.  Geol. Bull., 73, 692.” Her detailed CV can be viewed by clicking here. Contact Ms. Weissenburger at weissenburger@oiltracers.com.