April 2014 ESE Newsletter

Peter Allison at Purgatoire River Dinosaur Tracksite in the United States.

Volcanoes, dinosaur tracks and a lot of press coverage this month following Jon Hill's talk on an abandoned prehistoric "Atlantis" in the North Sea!

Publications
Conference Talks and Lectures
Awards
Research Grants
Research Activity
Impact and Media
Outreach Activities
Fieldwork
New Staff and Leavers
Other Announcements

Publications

Almeida, T. P., Moro, F., Fay, M. W., Zhu, Y. and Brown, P. D. (2014). Tuneable magnetic properties of hydrothermally synthesised core/shell CoFe2O4/NiFe2O4 and NiFe2O4/CoFe2O4 nanoparticles. Journal of Nanoparticle Research. Doi: 10.1007/s11051-014-2395-1.

Dale, A., John, C., Mozley, P. S., Smalley, P.C. and Muggeridge, A. H., (2014). Time-capsule concretions: Unlocking burial diagenetic processes in the Mancos Shale using carbonate clumped isotopes. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. Doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2014.03.004.

De Plaen, R.S.M., Bastow, I.D., Chambers, E., Keir, D. and Gallacher, R. (2014). The Development of Magmatism Along the Cameroon Volcanic Line: Evidence from Seismic Anisotropy and Seismicity. Journal of Geophysical Research. Doi:10.1002/2013JB010583.

Deveugle, P.E.K., Jackson, M.D., Hampson, G.J., Stewart, J., Clough, M.D., Ehighebolo, T., Farrell, M.E., Calvert, C.S. and Miller, J.K. (2014). A comparative study of reservoir modeling techniques and their impact on predicted performance of fluvial-dominated deltaic reservoirs. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin. Doi:10.1306/08281313035.

Hammond, J. O. S., Kendall, J-M., Wookey, J., Stuart, G. W., Keir, D., Ayele, A. (2014). Differentiating flow, melt, or fossil seismic anisotropy beneath Ethiopia. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. Doi:10.1002/2013GC005185. 

Matsushima T. and Blumenfeld R. (2014). Universal structural characteristics of planar granular packs. Physical Review Letters. Doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.098003.

Muxworthy, A. R., Krása, D., Williams, W. and Almeida, T. P. (2014). Palaeomagnetic recording fidelity of non-ideal magnetic systems, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. Doi: 10.1002/2014GC005249.

Rooney, T. O., Bastow, I. D., Keir, D. Movsesian, E., Mazzarini, F., Grosfils, E., Zimbelman, E., Ramsey, M., Ayalew, D. and Yirgu, G. (2014). The protracted development of focused magmatic intrusion during continental rifting, Tectonics. Doi: 10.1002/2013TC003514.

Conference Talks and Lectures

Rebecca Bell gave a guest lecture at the Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas (UTIG) in Austin on “Next-generation seismic experiments: wide-angle, multi-azimuth, three-dimensional, full-waveform inversion”. Rebecca also gave a guest lecture on “Recovering physical property information from subduction plate boundaries using 3D full-waveform seismic inversion” at GNS Science in Wellington, New Zealand.

Adam Booth gave a "Snapshot" seminar to the glaciology group at Bergen University, entitled "Quantitative Analysis of Geophysical Datasets in Glaciology", on Wednesday 30th April.

James Hammond attended the EGU conference in Vienna and gave two talks entitled "Constraining crustal anisotropy: The anisotropic H-k stacking technique’ and 'Differentiating flow, melt, or fossil seismic anisotropy beneath Ethiopia". 

Chris Jackson attended the ‘Brae Play’ conference, which was held at the Ardoe House Hotel, Aberdeen (23^rd-24^th April 2014). The conference focused on the structure, stratigraphy and hydrocarbon systems of the South Viking Graben and surrounding areas. He presented two talks; the first focused on the role that thin-skinned, gravity-driven faulting above salt played in controlling the dispersal of Upper Jurassic turbidite sands, and the resultant stratigraphic of late syn-rift reservoirs. The second talk investigated the kinematics of gravity-driven normal faulting, with particular emphasis on the factors that control sub-seismic slip rate variability. For his trouble, he received a nice, mounted piece of syn-rift conglomerate core from 4.2 km below the North Sea.

Dick Selley pontificated on UK shale gas at the Britain's Unconventional Future conference organised by Future Energy Strategies on 3 April.

Awards

Trevor Almeida has been awarded £750 from the Arthur Holmes Centenary Research Grant to attend the SuperSTEM Summer School, called "Advanced Topics in Aberration-Corrected Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM)". The Summer School is an exclusive training programme, providing lectures on advanced microscopy theory, alongside hands-on operation of the SuperSTEM instruments and training in advanced analysis software.

Adam Booth secured $5000 from the Society of Exploration Geophysics Foundation in support MSc fieldtrip costs.

Adam Booth, Ian Bastow and Philippa Mason received departmental 'Speed Collaboration' funding, of £2400, to acquire seismic data to detect near-surface faults in the London Chalk.

Research Grants

A three-year EPSRC funded (total value £772 711) project “Development of Unified Experimental and Theoretical Approach to Predict Reactive Transport in Subsurface Porous Media” commenced on 1 April 2014. The project is a joint collaboration between the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College (PI Branko Bijeljic) and the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge (PI Andy Sederman) The main goal is to undertake a systematic program of research integrating pore-to-core scale measurements (at Cambridge University) and modelling (at Imperial College) of reactive transport processes into a unified experimental and theoretical framework. Applications include carbon storage, contaminant transport and enhanced oil recovery.

Research Activity

Philip Allen has recently published an e-book entitled 'Earth Dramas: Ancient Mysteries and Modern Controversies', which can be downloaded onto a Kindle, or onto smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers using a free Kindle app. The book looks at the way that science proceeds in a dark undergrowth of social or human factors, and deals with geoscience topics such as evolution, continental drift, Snowball Earth, the Gaia hypothesis, the Anthropocene, the K-Pg mass extinction and more.

Impact and Media

James Hammond's work on Mt. Paektu Volcano in North Korea saw more press coverage, this time in The Guardian.

Jon Hill's talk at the European Geosciences Union Conference was the object of much press coverage, including the BBC  and The Independent.

His slides are up on figshare.

Jon was asked to appear on NewsRound here and here.

He was also interviewed on the German radio station "Deutschlandfunk",
the Russian station "Voice of Russia" and "BBC Scotland".

Dick Selley gave a TV interview on fracking shale gas for the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation on 4 April.

Outreach Activities

Ian Bastow was involved in a week-long schools outreach trip to Trinidad and Tobago. He installed seismometers in 8 schools across the islands, and gave a two-day workshop for physics and geography teachers about how to use seismology as a teaching aid in schools. More information is available from the website.

Zita Martins was a speaker at two events of the Edinburgh Science Festival: “Creation - the origins of life” with author and broadcaster Adam Rutherford (BBC Radio 4, Inside Science) and Glasgow University’s Regius Chair of Chemistry Prof Lee Cronin; and “Richard Wiseman's beginners' guide to astrobiology”, with Prof Richard Wiseman.

Zita Martins also spoke at the XVII national meeting of Biology students in Portugal (XVII Encontro Nacional de Estudantes de Biologia). She gave a talk about Astrobiology and the origin of life on Earth.

On April 2^nd ESE hosted 24 pupils aged 14-15 from the Vincent Van Gogh school, with help from former pupil and current undergraduate Jesse Zondervan, for an outreach event to promote Earth Sciences and Imperial College.Sanjeev Gupta showcased some of the exciting research being undertaken in the department, Paul Grant led an interactive workshop on Plate Tectonics, and undergraduates Owain Roberts, Emily Pennington, Arka Sarker, Stuart MacGowan, Annie Cheng and Jesse Zondervan gave campus tours and discussed thin sections and hand specimens with the pupils. The event was assisted by the UG admin team and overseen by Emma Passmore.

On 29th and 30th March, ESE hosted 200 students aged 15 to 18 participating in the fifth national final of the annual UK Space Design Competition (UKSDC). The students were asked to present designs for a mobile space settlement designed for 10,000 people, and designed to move small near-Earth asteroids close to the Earth and the Moon where they could be mined and processed.

This year’s judging panel included David Southwood, President of the Royal Astronomical Society and former Director of Science and Robotic Exploration at the European Space Agency; Randall Perry, founder of the UKSDC and a senior research investigator at the Impacts and Astromaterials Research Centre at Imperial College London; and Helen Oliver, a research associate at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. 

Fieldwork

Adam Booth undertook a 9-day fieldwork campaign (19th-28th April) on Midtdalsbreen glacier, Norway, using GPR methods to map the distribution of liquid water within the glacier. The fieldwork was in collaboration with Dr Benny Reinardy and Dr Anna Hughes (Bergen University), and is giving new and unexpected insights about the thermal regime of the glacier.

Adam Booth, Benny Reinardy and Anna Hughes on their glaciological research trip.

The MSc Petroleum Geophysics class took part in the EAGE's "Geophysics Boot Camp", between 29th March and 5th April, under the supervision of Adam Booth. Valuable contributions to teaching support were received from James Hammond, Akela Silverton, Laura Petrescu, Kenneth Irabor, Hussam Busfar, Tom Berndt, Jack Ashley and Henry Debens.  Under generally sunny skies, on the Wintershall-operated Emlichheim oilfield, MSc students got hands-on experience with industrial acquisition systems, including a 12-ton Vibroseis unit to perform seismic reflection surveys. This inaugural camp was a great success, and Imperial students were even featured in the local newspaper!

Students Jude Osimbi, Emma Nesbit and Luis Gavidia-Castillo in front of the Vibroseis truck.

Chris Dean and some Sauropod tracks!

Christopher Dean has been doing fieldwork for 3 weeks with Peter Allison and Gary Hampson in the Mid-west of the US looking at a transect of the Western Interior Seaway during the Cenomanian / Turonian Boundary and Mid-Campanian to study the impact of varying facies on the distribution and preservation of biota. They stopped at sites in Utah, Colorado and Texas to collect samples for thin sectioning to see how aragonite dissolution might effect perceived patterns of biodiversity.

New Staff and Leavers

Edmund Noon has been appointed as a Research Associate in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, from 23^rd April 2014 to 22nd April 2016 working with Dr Gregg Offer.

Yingfang Zhou has been appointed as a Research Associate in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, and will be working with Professor Ann Muggeridge from 7 April 2014 until 6 April 2017.

Zhangwei Chen has been appointed as a Research Assistant in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, from 1st April 2014 until 31st March 2015 working with Professor Nigel Brandon and Professor Alan Atkinson.

Bagus Muljadi has been appointed as a Research Associate in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, from 14^th April 2014 to 31^st March 2017 working with Professor Martin Blunt and Dr Branko Bijeljic.

John Rippon has been appointed as Senior Research Investigator in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, from 1^st April 2014 to 31^st March 2017.

Laura Gnata has been appointed as a MSc Administrator (Part-time) in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, from 25th April 2014 until 1st February 2015, working with Mrs Shashi Luther.

Richard Ferrier has been appointed as a Research Associate in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, until 26th October 2015 working with Dr Stephen Neethling.

Amandine Prelat is resigning from her post as a Research Associate in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering, as of 30th May 2014.

Other Anouncements

Chris Jackson completed the London Marathon on behalf of the Prostate Cancer Research Centre, raising a little over £3000. He would like to thank everyone who sponsored him, both inside and outside of Imperial College. He’d also like to remind himself to never run a marathon again.