ESE and the Geological Society convened a meeting to celebrate the past, present and future of petroleum geoscience and engineering education.

Publications
Conference Talks and Lectures
Research Grants
Research Activity
Workshops and Courses
Awards
Impact and Media
Outreach Activities
Rio Tinto Scholarships
Earthclass
PhD Vivas
Academic Appointments
New Staff
Other Announcements

Publications

Andrew, M., Bijeljic, B. and Blunt, M.J.  (2013). Pore-scale imaging of geological carbon-dioxide storage at in situ conditions. Geophysical Research Letters. Doi:10.1002/grl.50771.

D’Arcy, M. and Whittaker, A.C. (2013). Geomorphic constraints on landscape sensitivity to climate in tectonically active areas. Geomorphology. Doi: 10.1016/j.geomorph.2013.08.019.

David, E.C., Fortin, J., Schubnel, A., Guéguen, Y. and Zimmerman, R.W. (2013). New laboratory measurements of low and high-frequency elastic moduli in Fontainebleau sandstone. Geophysics. Doi:10.1190/GEO2013-0070.1.

Davison, T.M., O'Brien, D.P., Ciesla, F. J. and Collins, G.S. (2013). The early impact histories of meteorite parent bodies. Meteoritics and Planetary Science. Doi: 10.1111/maps.12193.

Hammond, J.O.S., Kendall, J-M., Collier, J.S. and Rumpker, G. (2013). The extent of continental crust beneath the Seychelles. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. Doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2013.08.023.

Jackson C.A.L. and Lewis, M.M. (2013). Physiography of the NE margin of the Permian Salt Basin: new insights from 3D seismic reflection data. Journal of the Geological Society, London. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/jgs2013-026.
 
Jackson C.A.L., Schofield N. and Golenkov B. (2013). Geometry and controls on the development of igneous sill-related forced folds: a 2D seismic reflection case study from offshore southern Australia. Geological Society of America Bulletin. Doi: 10.1130/B30833.1.

Mannion, P.D. and Barrett, P.M. (2013). Additions to the sauropod dinosaur fauna of the Cenomanian (early Late Cretaceous) Kem Kem beds of Morocco: palaeobiogeographical implications of the mid-Cretaceous African sauropod fossil record. Cretaceous Research. Doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2013.07.007.

Martins, Z., Price, M.C., Goldman, N., Sephton, M.A. and Burchell, M.A. (2013). Shock synthesis of amino acids from impacting cometary and icy planet surface analogues. Nature Geoscience. Doi:10.1038/ngeo1930.

Tvedt, A.B.M., Rotevatn, A., Jackson, C.A.L., Fossen H. and Gawthorpe R.L. (2013). Growth of normal faults in multilayer sequences; A 3D seismic case study from the Egersund Basin, Norwegian North Sea. Journal of Structural Geology. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsg.2013.08.002.

Conference Talks and Lectures

The year 2013 marks the 100th anniversary of the inauguration of a BSc Oil Technology degree at the Royal School of Mines, which was the first petroleum-related degree in the UK. To mark the Centenary of this landmark event, the Department, in partnership with The Geological Society of London, convened a special meeting at Imperial College on 23rd and 24th September, with the theme: ‘100 Years and Beyond: Future Petroleum Science & Technology Drivers’.
 
Trevor Almeida gave a talk at the Electron Microscopy and Analysis Group Conference 2013 in York on ‘Complementary electron energy loss spectroscopy and off-axis electron holography investigation of the chemical remanent magnetisation of synthetic magnetic recorders’. He also gave a talk on ‘Visualisation of nano-scale magnetic fields’ at the Institute of Physics: Current Research in Magnetism meeting in London.

Ian Bastow gave an invited talk about Precambrian plate tectonics at the Mineralogical Society's Building Strong Continents meeting in Portsmouth (2-4 September).

Gaurav Bhutani presented his work at the 5th International Conference on Population Balance Modelling in Bangalore (11-13 September). His poster was entitled ‘Adaptive population balances using direct quadrature method of moments in a finite element framework’ and was awarded the best poster award at the conference.

David Cronan gave a paper on South Pacific manganese nodules at the Deep Sea Mining Summit held in London.

James Hammond attended the IAVCEI conference in Kagoshima, Japan presenting work on Nabro Volcano, Eritrea and Mt. Paektu Volcano, North Korea. James also attended the East-Asia Earthquake Seminar in Changbaishan, China, where he presented an invited talk on Mt. Paektu Volcano, North Korea.

Over the past months, Michael King has given a series of invited talks, including lectures entitled ‘Shale Gas’ at the University of Northampton, ‘Acoustic Emission Studies Associated with Shale Gas Exploration and Production’ at the 2nd Symposium on Petroleum Seismogeology, in Lanzhou, China, and a two-week series of lectures on ‘Formation Evaluation’ at the China University of Petroleum, Beijing.

John-Paul Latham delivered an invited Keynote Address, ‘How do rubble breakwaters survive wave attack? Challenges for a FEMDEM/CFD model solution’ to the 6th International Conference on Discrete Element Methods (DEM6), held in Colorado School of Mines. AMCG papers were also presented by Research Fellow, Jiansheng Xiang and PhD student Nikolaos Karantzoulis.

John-Paul Latham also presented a paper entitled ‘Building concrete unit armoured breakwaters in a numerical model environment – a new placement technique’ on behalf of PhD student Eleni Anastasaki at the ICE Coasts, Marine Structures and Breakwaters Conference (19 September).

Dick Selley gave a lecture entitled 'Perspectives on Future Developments on shale gas in NW Europe' for the 100 Years & Beyond: Future Petrolem Science & Technology Drivers conference at Imperial College.

Tina van de Flierdt delivered a plenary lecture at the 11th International Conference on Paleoceanography, which took place in early September in Sitges, Spain.

About 20 geochemists from various parts of the department (e.g., MAGIC, carbonate group, experimental petrology, clean fossil fuels) attended the annual Goldschmidt conference in Florence, Italy.  Mark Rehkamper delivered two keynote talks and everybody enjoyed the Italian life style!

Research Grants

Anna Korre and Sevket Durucan received € 712,000 from the European Commission as part of the FP7-ENERGY-2013-1 call. The MIRECOL project entitled ‘Mitigation and Remediation of CO2 leakage’ will develop and evaluate corrective measures and plans that prevent or stop the release of CO2 in case of leakages or significant irregularities at CO2 storage sites.

Research Activity

Ian Bastow carried out fieldwork in SE Canada to install broadband seismograph stations to record distant earthquakes. Over the next two years, recordings of distant earthquakes detected by these instruments will allow his team to analyse the deep Earth structure beneath the edge of the Canadian shield. Other instruments in this network stretch all the way from coastal Maine and Nova Scotia, to the southern-most tip of Hudson Bay - a transect that samples geology spanning almost 2/3 of Earth's history. New PhD student Laura Petrescu will be working on these data with Ian and collaborators in Montreal and New York.

ESE PhD palaeomagnetism student Sarah Dodd left for a month's fieldwork in Namibia funded National Geographic.

James Hammond conducted 16 days fieldwork in North Korea, deploying 6 seismometers and collecting geological samples with the aim of characterising previous eruptions, and the current state of Mt. Paektu Volcano.

Workshops and Courses

Over summer, Gaurav Bhutani attended the MIT-Imperial College Global Fellows Research Skills Development course in Boston. The 3-day course was organised by the Imperial College graduate school and MIT. Twenty people from each institution attended the course.

Awards

Gaurav Bhutani was awarded the best poster award at the 5th International Conference on Population Balance Modelling in Bangalore, September 11-13, 2013.

Torben Sturve won a poster award at the 11th International Conference on Paleoceanography, which took place in early September in Sitges, Spain.

Michael King received the EAGE 2013 Lorand Eotvos Award from the Duke of York. Michael was also awarded the 2013 MTS Award from Professor Charles Fairhurst at the University of Minnesota, following an invited lecture on "Ultrasonics in Rock Physics" in May 2013.

Impact and Media

The Centenary meeting ‘100 Years and Beyond: Future Petroleum Science & Technology Drivers’, hosted by the RSM, appeared on the main college news website.

David Cronan’s paper on South Pacific manganese nodules was reported in The Guardian.

James Hammond’s work in North Korea appeared in Science Magazine and led to news interest, including the BBC, Financial Times,New Scientist, AAAS, Planet Earth and ESE news.

Zita Martins’ work published in Nature Geoscience was reported on television in the Jornal Nacional from TV Globo, the biggest TV channel in Brazil. The show was watched by 60 million viewers.

Zita's work was also reported in newspapers and magazines worldwide, including The Guardian, Time Magazine, Wired, SkyNews, New Scientist, Discovery News, Fox News, NBC News, The Times, The Independent, LA Times, Science Daily, Phys.Org, The Scotsman, Herald Sun Australia, Daily Mail, Top News New Zealand, Jornal Público (Portuguese), Jornal Expresso (Portuguese), Diário de Noticias (Portuguese), tvi24 (Portuguese), Jornal de Noticias (Portuguese), Europa Press (Spanish), El Economista (Spanish), Vesti (Russian), Welt der Physik (German), Sina (Chinese), Radio Televisiono of Serbia (Serbian), Galileo (Italian), Scientias (Dutch), The Times of India, Science World Report, Science News and Nature World News.

Dick Selley gave an interview on shale gas for the BBC World Service.

Outreach Activities

Matthew Loader and Iain Stewart led the Geological Society’s Geoscience Education Academy this summer. Matt led a ‘fieldtrip’ around the building stones of South Kensington and Green Park. The group consisted of school science teachers and the aim was to promote the teaching of Geology to GCSE and A-Level students.

Matthew Loader, Nat Stephen and Marion Ferrat took part in the Soapbox Science activity during the Natural History Museum Science Uncovered event on Friday 27th September. Nat Stephen also participated in the Meteorite Imaging Station activity.

Rio Tinto Scholarships

All ESE Rio Tinto scholars (2012-13 cohort) have now returned from their summer internships. Harry Fisher, Zoe Pierre, Alice Pistolesi and Emma Toms spent the summer at UCT in Cape Town, while Isobel Mackay and Hayley Meek were at the Julius-Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre in Brisbane, Australia. ESE also hosted Gustavo Proeglhoef (Mech Eng) as an intern in the Rio Tinto Centre for Advanced Mineral Recovery. Many thanks to everyone involved for making the internships such a success.

Undergraduate applicants have now been interviewed for the next round of Rio Tinto scholarships (2013-14 cohort). Following a competitive application process, 13 ESE students were invited for interview, and a further 12 from other FoE departments. The twelve successful scholars will be announced in the October Newsletter.

 
Earthclass

On Thurs 19th Sept ESE hosted 58 GCSE students from three schools for the latest Earthclass event (our largest ever). Marion Ferrat gave an introduction to ESE research. The students then attended four interactive activities: “PANNING FOR GOLD”, Emma Passmore; “FROTH FLOTATION”, Katie Cole; “GOOEY GLACIERS”, Adam Booth; “WHY DO VOLCANOES GO BANG?”, Craig Magee. The day ended with a question and answer session, where participants asked the undergraduate and postgraduate demonstrators questions about Earth Sciences and studying at Imperial.

The day was overseen and organised by Gareth Morris, Katie Cole and Emma Passmore, with assistance from the UG Admin Team. The workshops were assisted by postgraduate students Matt Loader, Jake Longridge, Katy Murphy, William Hu and Daniel Barker, and undergraduate students James Cox, Ben Warnick, Ronan McAdam, Rachael Shuttleworth, Kishan Patel and Matthew Lisley. Many thanks to all those involved.

PhD Vivas

Carys Cook passed her PhD viva on 17 September, and will take on a postdoc position at the University of Florida in early 2014. We wish her the best of luck in her next appointment!

Academic Appointments

Dennis Buchanan has been appointed British Hispanic Foundation Chair at the Universidad Complutense, Madrid. An initial planning visit was undertaken between 23 – 26th September. A series of meeting were arranged by Dr Agustin Pedro Pieren Pidal with his colleagues in the Faculties of Geology and Economics. These meetings were aimed at examining the merits of integrating the traditional teaching of mineral and petroleum geoscience with the skills available through the Department of Economics at Madrid. As part of the appointment to the Chair, a series of lectures will be delivered in late March to postgraduate students. The lectures will comprise an executive summary of the approach used in undertaking the technical and financial appraisal of a mineral project. The final component of appointment is to deliver a public lecture. It is proposed that this be timed for the second week in September 2014.

New Staff

Torben Stichel joined the MAGIC group as a postdoctoral research scientist, working with Tina van de Flierdt.

Other Announcements

Please come and support ESE’s 2013 Rockrunners on Sunday 6th October! Below is a message from the team:

‘Once again, the Rockrunners are taking to the streets of London to take part in the Royal Parks Half Marathon on Sunday 6th October. The Royal Parks is a course of 13. 2 miles through the parks and streets of London, starting and ending in Hyde Park –  perfect if you want to come and support us, it is always nice to see friendly faces at the finish line!
 
This year we will be running for 3 very worthy causes: The Royal British Legion, the British Heart Foundation and St Christopher’s Hospice.
 
If you would like to sponsor us and support one of these charities we have set up Justgiving pages for each, all linked at the following team page.
 
Thank you so much and please do help us support these very worthy charities.
 
Best wishes from the Rockrunners Team 2013:
 
Trevor Almeida, Tanya Chong, Jason Coyne, Sam Krevor, Adam Laycock, Matt Loader, Craig Magee, Christoph Mazur, Mark Sephton, Gaurav Singh and Ed Spencer’.