May Luncheon and Annual Meeting

Please RSVP by 3:00pm on Friday, May 16, 2025.

Reservations made after the deadline will incur an additional fee of $10.

LOCATION: In-Person luncheon meeting will be held at the Bush Convention Center. Virtual meeting on Zoom. 

TOPIC: Facts, Fiction, Fantasy, and the Future Prospects of Energy-Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence (ED-XRF) in

Geo-Characterization, with Examples from the Permian Basin, West Texas, USA - Harry Rowe, Amr Ahmed, and Mohamed Adel, Premier Corex

ABSTRACT: A review of the ED-XRF method of measurement and geochemical quantification (including caveats,

pitfalls, limitations) is presented in the context of real-life data generation on core and cuttings samples

from Devonian- through Permian-aged strata of the Permian Basin. It is highlighted that, as no industry-

wide standard exists today for XRF analysis and quantification, a broad range of analytical outcomes

may arise from the various approaches, implying the potential for a broad range of interpretive

outcomes, especially if elemental results are used to develop a modeled mineralogy and/or a

chemofacies scheme. Solutions and best practice applications are suggested, with recommended

“shortcuts”, should specific conditions and expectations be met.

A second and final portion of the presentation presents a window into new and/or advanced analytical

techniques that have the potential to 1) quantitatively expand ED-XRF analysis to the rare earth

elements (REEs) for improved refinement of provenance and/or diagenesis studies and 2) capture a finer

scale of geochemical variation (mm scale) that, if undertaken on pristine core, has the potential to

unlock the timing and underlying driving mechanisms of depositional/diagenetic change in deep basin

mudrock successions, along with the chemical/sedimentological/mechanical characteristics that are

dictated by the varying modes of deposition/diagenesis.

BIO: Dr. Harry Rowe received his degrees in geology from Miami University (BA, 1993), the University of New

Mexico (MS, 1995), and Stanford University (PhD, 2002). His graduate work focused on developing rock

magnetic and stable isotopic paleoenvironmental proxies in late Quaternary lacustrine systems of the

southwestern United States and the Altiplano of Bolivia and Peru. As a university professor he worked

primarily on reconstructing records of Paleozoic and Mesozoic paleoceanographic change from the

Appalachian, Fort Worth, and Permian basins, and the Jurassic-Cretaceous Gulf Coast Province. He also

developed a widely-used set of reference materials for portable x-ray fluorescence (XRF) technology.

During his four-and-one-half years as a research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology (University

of Texas at Austin), he further developed a focus on geochemically-based, facies-scale stratigraphic

records and their use in refinement of stratigraphic models.

Along with former geology students from the University of Texas at Austin, he co-founded a

chemostratigraphy solutions company, which was subsequently purchased by Premier Oilfield

Laboratories. Since joining Premier in November 2016, Dr. Rowe has directed his efforts toward

developing a more integrated workflow that combines quantitative chemofacies, lithofacies, and

mechanical attributes, facilitating cross-disciplinary investigation of reservoir rock below the resolution

of open-hole logs. Much of his work continues to center on the development of mudrock reference

materials and their use in generating accurate XRF-based geochemical data sets.