Honorary Degree

Meng Ersheng

Meng Ersheng graduated from the Mining Department of Tangshan Engineering College of Jiaotong University in 1946 and began work with the Chinese Petroleum Corporation. He received support from the company to attend Colorado School of mines as a special student in 1948. After one year of study he returned to China duo to the impending civil war.

By early-1950s, Mr. Meng began his geophysical career as a teacher, educated and trained many early Chinese petroleum geophysicists. Mr. Meng was instrumental in implementing geophysics in Northwest China as well as in Northeast China where lies the big Songliao Basin and the giant Daqing Oil Field. Amid the Cultural Revolution, he was sent to the Loess Plateau area for searching workable seismic methods, and was soon called back to Bohai-Bay Basin (North China Basin) where dozens of important oil fields were found within a few years by multiple-coverage method proposed and organized by him. Mr. Meng had been chief geophysicist of the Bureau of Geophysical Prospecting (BGP) since the founding in 1973 through 1988, the year of his retiring. This was the time to interact with western companies, to modernize the seismic equipment and to initiate close relationship with the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG). He has been long time active with the Society of Petroleum Geophysicists (SPG) and was the inaugural president of the SEG Beijing Section (1994-1996).

Mr. Meng has maintained close ties with Colorado School of Mines since he was a student here, and the CSM Geophysics Department created the Meng Ersheng Geophysics Student Award in his honor. Mr. Meng was awarded life Membership by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists in 1992. Mr. Meng was born in Tai County, Jiangsu Province in China. His wife, Liu Lan-Ri was a college graduate of economy. They have four sons and three grandchildren.

submitted by CSM

12/2005