8: Where the Next Geoscience Opportunity Comes From (Inside IMAGE '26)

As IMAGE 2026 gets underway, we return to two conversations from last year that feel even more relevant now. Peter Duncan explains why asset turnover can create openings for smaller oil and gas companies. In today’s opening address, ExxonMobil’s John Ardill said the company is quicker to sell acreage it no longer plans to pursue rather than hold onto it. Peter described the opportunity on the other side of that process: experienced people leave or form new companies, acquire properties the majors no longer want, and become a new group of customers looking for geophysical technology and expertise. Peter also shares a very different example of how unexpected opportunities emerge. A company approached MicroSeismic at IMAGE about monitoring sinkholes after a costly event in Florida. That conversation became several million dollars a year in ongoing work, in a market MicroSeismic would never have thought to pursue on its own. Susan Nash picks up that theme from another direction. She sees growing need for subsurface knowledge across natural gas, geothermal, lithium, produced water, and energy storage. She also left IMAGE thinking differently about AI after hearing an approach that starts with rocks and geologic data rather than only the language geoscientists have already written, raising questions about how much interpretation and bias may already be built into training material. Together, these 2025 conversations offer a useful way into IMAGE 2026: opportunity can emerge when assets change hands, when familiar technology finds an unexpected application, and when people put ideas next to each other that they would not have connected otherwise. LINKS * Attend IMAGE '26 - https://www.imageevent.org/ * View the Inside IMAGE '26 Podcast Schedule - https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/LETDMZk3GvZ42PzjQMdmY7in * Listen to Inside IMAGE Podcast Series - https://www.imageevent.org/podcast