Michael T. Myers

Plagiarist and Fraud

Plagiarized 1991 SCA Paper

“A Saturation Interpretation Model for the Dielectric Constant of Shaly Sands” (PDF)

This is a textbook case of blatant PLAGIARISM – but it is even much worse, because it is one thing to steal someone’s ideas and contributions and quite another to prevent them from publishing their work so that they would have the opportunity to receive the proper credit for their contributions (Mark Rosen was never able to receive permission to publish his research from Shell because of the dishonesty and misinformation due to Mike Myers, Mark Shannon [responsible manager] , Gordon Setser, Del Christensen (Shell patent lawyer), etc.).

There is very little in this paper that was not already expressed in Mark Rosen’s internal Shell publications (first paper is posted on this website) and the data and undocumented concepts that he left behind after moving on to defense R&D in September 1985 . In spite of complaints dating back to 1987, Shell management has done nothing about Michael Myers’ unethical, dishonest and unprofessional behavior. The SCA* has also refused to withdraw or annotate this disgraceful paper (the leadership of the SPWLA and SPE have also chosen to ignore one of the worst cases of research misconduct -- so much for their supposed support of professional integrity in the oil industry). Horace Judson in his book The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science said it best:

“The motives to downplay the charges, cover-up the misconduct, are strong – inevitable, almost universal.” (p.373)

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* The SCA was formed after Mark Rosen left the oil business. He did not discover its existence until many years after Mike Myers’ plagiarized paper was published. Shell (including Mike Myers) has been aware of Mark Rosen’s desire to publish his research since he has made numerous requests since 1986.

NOTE: This information was shared with both Michael Myers and Mark Shannon. They had no corrections -- in essence admitting to serious violations of professional ethics.

Summary of

Mark D. A. Rosen’s Contributions to Dielectric Logging

• Unique approach to analyzing the measurements – isolate the dispersion by subtracting the high frequency limit (a key to the discoveries made)
• Estimated the high frequency limit value using a simple linear approximation (initially used a fit to the data in Poley et al’s paper) – a better and simpler approach than using Hanai-Bruggeman -- it should be remembered that dielectric logging is only needed for low salinity situations
• First to establish a correlation of the RF (1-200 MHz) dielectric behavior with clay content ( major discovery)
• Discovered that polarization due to clay appears to be diffusion limited in the 10-100 MHz region ( i.e., 1/sqrt(f) behavior) ( major discovery)
• Created a new petrophysical parameter Qbv that correctly quantifies polarization due to clay from low to high frequency (i.e. IP to RF) ( Breakthrough)
• Studied salinity effects and devised a simple way to compensate for changes (critical insight)
• Studied very shaly sands and found their polarization to be salinity independent – also determined that the RF dielectric behavior is independent of whether the clay is dispersed or laminated ( major discovery)*
• For water wet state, hypothesized and later proved that the presence of oil has little effect on the polarization due to clay in the 10-100 MHz region (showed this by comparing measurements made at 100% water saturation and at residual water saturation) – based on other published saturation measurements, proposed that the saturation affects only the high frequency term and varies linearly ( critical insight).
• Formulated a viable approach to interpreting dielectric measurements in terms of practical petrophysical parameters (porosity, clay content (Qbv), and saturation) – unlike the platey particle construct of Sen et al at Schlumberger that is useless. ( Mark created the only successful program in the industry)
• Invented a dual frequency approach to RF dielectric logging from which clay content can be determined (Qbv or Qv if porosity is known) – patent was docketed – can also determine saturation ( new unique logging tool)
• Developed a unique measuring system using a new approach for compensating for parasitics when using a General Radio 1690A parallel plate sample holder.
• Measurements made at fixed temperature (28 C) – other than Poley et al, the only one to do this
• Surfaces of the electrodes were gold plated
• Thin brine saturated tissue disks were used to fill gaps in the uneven rock surface to assure uniform contact with the capacitor plate electrodes
• Wrote a state-of-the-art software data acquisition and analysis system
• Many of the measurements in Mike Myers’ plagiarized paper were taken by Mark Rosen (He did not receive the help of technician until the last 6 months he was there – this technician was shared with Mike Myers) – the only measurements from Mike Myers’ coax system and network analyzer were in Figure 1.

* Inappropriately disclosed in a Vinegar-Waxman 1987 patent about their Induced Polarization (IP) work which was shown to be wrong by Mark Rosen (LINK)

What Little Michael Myers Contributed

• Supposedly discovered a linear porosity dependence for the “b” term (“clean sandstone" term)—although he did not provide very convincing evidence.
• Finished varying the saturation – although he did not provide any direct evidence for the linear dependence on saturation – the graphs presented were very poor examples)
• Complicated the analysis by resurrecting the Hanai-Bruggemann mixing relation for the high frequency limit
• Also complicated things by introducing other unnecessary concepts (“n”, porosity-salinity, etc,)
• Supposedly did a great amount of number crunching (most likely done by his technician)
• Did an extraordinarily bad job of “completing” my analysis and writing it up.
• Easily one of the worst written papers in the history of science and technology (many mistakes uncorrected, poorly expressed, extremely poor choice in graphs, etc.)
• There was so little remaining for Mike to finish after Mark Rosen left that this atrocious paper clearly demonstrates not only his poor writing abilities but also his incompetence