About Jeff Dravis

Jeff Dravis is a carbonate geologist whose consulting activities primarily focus on aiding the discovery of oil and gas deposits, or enhancing their development once they are discovered. He also conducts numerous applied carbonate training seminars for industry every year.

Jeff received his Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. He then obtained a Master of Science degree in Marine Geology from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences in Miami, Florida. His thesis was entitled “Holocene Sedimentary Environments on Eleuthera Bank, Bahamas” and was supervised by Dr. Harold R. Wanless. In 1976, Jeff entered Rice University, Houston, Texas, to work on deep-water carbonates under the direction of Dr. James Lee Wilson. He was awarded a Ph D in Geology; his dissertation was entitled “Sedimentology and Diagenesis of the Upper Cretaceous Austin Chalk Formation, South Texas and Northern Mexico.”

Dr. Dravis began his professional career in Houston in 1979 with Exxon Production Research Company. There, he conducted applied research on carbonate facies, diagenesis and porosity evolution, but also headed up Exxon’s worldwide training efforts in carbonates. This training included teaching in-house seminars, as well as leading 25-day combined modern (Bahamas and S. Florida) and ancient (Texas and New Mexico) carbonate field seminars for the corporation.

In 1986, Jeff started a geological consulting practice in Houston. He founded Dravis Interests, Inc. to provide technical expertise and training in applied carbonate geology to the oil and gas industry. Later, Dravis Geological Services was created to handle all technical consulting projects. To date, Jeff has completed nearly 200 technical projects worldwide, working on carbonate sequences ranging in age from Cambrian to upper Tertiary. He has presented 327 in-house and field seminars to industry, both on a public and private basis. This includes teaching 73 industry and academic seminars on Caicos Platform in the southeastern Bahamas, as well as numerous ancient carbonate field seminars in west Texas and New Mexico.

Jeff has been an Adjunct Professor of Geology at Rice University since 1987, where he has taught parts of graduate courses, taken students into the field, and served on thesis committees. In 2016, he began teaching the carbonate geology segment of the University of Houston’s Professional Master’s Program in Petroleum Geology and presented his sixth segment in January and February of 2023.

On a personal note, Jeff is married to Evelyn Parks, an early childhood educator and librarian. They have two children: Christopher, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, completed his doctorate in molecular biology at the University of Texas Medical School in Dallas, and works for Jansen Laboratories La Jolla, California; and Elizabeth, who graduated from Rice University in Houston, obtained a MS in Public Health from the University of Texas. For ten years, she worked for the UT Medical School in Houston and now works in Edwards Lifesciences based out of California.

Jeff is an avid golfer and rower. For many years, he played in a men’s senior baseball league in Houston, as well as in national and regional tournaments. He was a member of the Houston Colt .45s team that won the Caribbean Winter Baseball Championship in Puerto Rico. They also won three national titles in the Roy Hobbs World Series in Ft. Myers, Florida, playing on the spring training facilities of the Red Sox and Twins, and numerous Labor tournaments in San Antonio and Houston.