November 2016 ESE Newsletter

November in ESE: Prestigious awards, coastal erosion and conferences worldwide

Contents

Publications
Conferences, Lectures and Seminars
Departmental Activities
Awards
Research Grants
Research Activity
Workshops and Courses
Impact and Media
Fieldwork
PhD vivas
Outreach

Publications

Al-Menhali, A. and S. Krevor. Pore-scale Analysis of In Situ Contact Angle Measurements in Mixed-wet Rocks: Applications to Carbon Utilization in Oil Fields. Environmental Science & Technology, 50(18),10282-10290.

Anastasaki, E., Latham, J-P. & Xiang, J. (2016). Numerical test for single concrete armour layer on breakwaters. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Maritime Engineering, 169(4), 174–187. doi:10.1680/jmaen.2014.25

Bertei, A., Ruiz-Trejo, E., Tariq, F., Yufit, V., Atkinson, A., & Brandon, N.P. (2016). Validation of a physically-based solid oxide fuel cell anode model combining 3D tomography and impedance spectroscopy. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 41, 22381-22393. doi:10.1016/j.ijhydene.2016.09.100

Bhutani, G. and Brito-Parada P.R. (2016). Analytical solution for a three-dimensional non-homogeneous bivariate population balance equation---a special case. International Journal of Multiphase Flow. doi: 10.1016/j.ijmultiphaseflow.2016.11.005.

Boldrin, P., Ruiz-Trejo, E., Mermelstein, J., Bermúdez Menéndez, J. M., Ramírez Reina, T., & Brandon, N. P. (2016). Strategies for carbon and sulfur tolerant solid oxide fuel cell materials, incorporating lessons from heterogeneous catalysis. Chemical Reviews. 116 (22), pp 13633–13684 DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemrev.6b00284

Hurst, H.D., Rood, D.H., Ellis, M.A., Anderson, R.S., Dornbusch, U. (2016). Recent acceleration in coastal cliff retreat rates on the south coast of Great Britain, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). DOI:10.1073/pnas.16130441133.

Mannie, A.S., Jackson, C.A-L., Hampson, G.J. & Fraser, A.J. (2016).Tectonic controls on the spatial distribution and stratigraphic architecture of a net-transgressive shallow-marine synrift succession in a salt-influenced rift basin: Middle-to-Upper Jurassic, Norwegian Central North Sea. Journal of the Geological Society, 173, 901-915. doi: 10.1144/jgs2016-033

Prytulak, J., Brett, A., Webb, M., Plank, T., Rehkamper, M., Savage, P.S. 2016. Thallium elemental behaviour and stable isotope fractionation during magmatic processes. Chemical Geology, in press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2016.11.007.

Ruiz-Trejo, E., Puolamaa, M., Sum, B., Tariq, F., Yufit, V., & Brandon, N. P. (2016). New Method for the Deposition of Nickel Oxide in Porous Scaffolds for Electrodes in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells and Electrolyzers. ChemSusChem. DOI: 10.1002/cssc.201600813

Shean B.J., Hadler K., Cilliers J.J. (2017). A flotation control system to optimise performance using peak air recovery. Chemical Engineering Research and Design 117, 57-65, doi:10.1016/j.cherd.2016.10.021

Van Cappelle, M., Stukins, S., Hampson, G.J. & Johnson, H.D. (2016). Fluvial-to-tidal transition in proximal, mixed tide- and wave-influenced deltaic deposits: Cretaceous lower Sego Sandstone, Utah, USA. Sedimentology, 63, 1333-1361. doi: 10.1111/sed12267

Yáñez-González, Á., Ruiz-Trejo, E., van Wachem, B., Skinner, S., Beyrau, F., & Heyes, A. (2016). Development of an optical thermal history coating sensor based on the oxidation of a divalent rare earth ion phosphor. Measurement Science and Technology, 27(11), 115103. dx.doi.org/10.1088/0957-0233/27/11/115103

Conferences, Lectures and Seminars

Julie Prytulak was invited to the Institut für Mineralogie at Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany, to give a seminar titled "Stable isotopes in magmatic systems: small variations with big implications".

On Friday 11, November Jenny Collier visited the Royal Astronomical Society to give the prestigious Harold Jeffreys lecture. This lecture is given annually by a distinguished and eloquent speaker, and is reserved for topics concerning the interior structure, formation and composition of the Earth.

John-Paul Latham gave an invited talk at the National Geosphere Laboratory’s (NGL) Underground Space Challenge Conference in Kalmar, Sweden on October 10-11 and visited the Äspö Underground Research Laboratory of SKB (the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co). The presentation was entitled ‘Application of FEMDEM models to the hydro-geomechanical behaviour of fractured and fragmented rocks including effects of fracture propagation and large rock displacement’ and featured work by many researchers from the Applied Modelling & Computational Group (AMCG). As a consequence, John-Paul is due to host a research visit from SKB’s waste repository modellers in February 2017

David Wilson gave a talk at the UK IODP General Conference in London on 15 November, with the title “Geological evidence for Late Pleistocene variability of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet?”

Chris Jackson visited the Mole Valley Geological Society (November 10th ) to give a talk entitled “The rock that wouldn’t stay still; a brief introduction to evaporites”. He was more-than-ably hosted by Imperial College Emeritus Professor and RSM stalwart, Dick Selley.

In mid-November Chris was also keynote speaker at the Earth Science Research Conference at the University of Plymouth (November 16). His talk was entitled “3D Seismic Reflection Data; Has the Geological Hubble Retained its Focus?”.

Finally Chris was an invited speaker at The Sedgwick Club, Department of Earth Science, University of Cambridge (November 28), where he gave a talk entitled “Hot Rocks Under Our Feet; Seismic Imaging of Igneous Geology in Sedimentary Basins”.

Ali Al-Menhali gave a talk in the 13th Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-13) at Lausanne, Switzerland titled "Pore-scale Analysis of In Situ Contact Angle Measurements in Mixed-wet Rocks: Applications to Carbon Utilization in Oil Fields”.

Gaurav Bhutani presented a paper at the 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Meeting held at San Francisco from 13-18 November 2016. The talk was titled "An open-source adaptive-mesh finite-element framework for the modelling of polydispersed flows using population balances". Co-authors of the paper were Pablo R. Brito-Parada and Jan J. Cilliers.

Departmental Activities

The Department celebrated the Hindu festival of light (Diwali) with cake, dancing and light-saber fencing in November.

Awards

James Hamilton-Wright has won the Neftex/Landmark Solutions, Earth Model Award 2016 for his MSc project work this summer - “Investigating the controls of salt movement using finite element modelling”. This award aims to foster the link between industry and academia by rewarding excellence in Master's level research in petroleum exploration geoscience. James received impressive reviews for his research, being described as “absolutely exceptional” and demonstrating “an amazing mastery of salt tectonics”. Thanks are also extended to Howard Johnson, Lidia Lonergan and Steve Dee (BP) for their help and supervision.

The department congratulates PhD student Ali Al-Menhali, who was awarded the best dissertation of the Year at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (ADIPEC). ADIPEC is one of the largest and most influential events in the oil and gas industry.

Carl McDermott, working with Jenny Collier and Lidia Lonergan was awarded best post-graduate talk at the recent Petex Conference in London, in the
collaboration showcase session - a session dedicated to joint oil-industry-academic research.

Research Grants

PhD student Helen Lacey of the Rock Mechanics Group has been awarded a London Petrophysical Society Iain Hillier Student Grant for £1000 to support her ongoing collaboration with the China Earthquake Administration.

Research Activity

Helen Lacey has been working in the University of Nottingham Nanoscale and Microscale Research Centre, using the FIB-SEM and TEM on the cores from her experimental work at the China Earthquake Administration (CEA) in Beijing. Her work at Nottingham is supported by an Engineering and Physical Sciences Partnered Access Fund grant to foster collaboration between the University of Nottingham, Imperial College London, and the CEA.

Professor Graham Stuart from the University of Leeds is visiting ESE for the next several months. Graham was Ian Bastow's PhD supervisor and can be found in Ian’s office.

Workshops and Courses

Philip Mannion and PhD students Alessandro Chiarenza and Jonathan Rio from the Paleobiology Research Group attended a workshop on the use of ‘BioGeoBEARS’ - free software for biogeographic analysis implemented in R. The workshop was organised by Professor Paul Upchurch, University College London (UCL) and was also attended by palaeontologists from the University of Birmingham, UCL and the Natural History Museum.

Impact and Media

Dylan Rood's 2016 research on “Recent acceleration in coastal cliff retreat rates on the south coast of Great Britain” was featured on the BBC and as a leading story on the Imperial College Website. The research was also widely featured in the press, including the Guardian, the Telegraph, Independent, Daily Mail, International Business Times, The Sun, and Nature News & Views.

Fieldwork

Ian Bastow and PhD student Chris Ogden travelled to Cyprus to begin a new collaborative project with the Cyprus Geological Survey. During the trip, they scouted a number of sites for future seismograph station deployments. They also took the time to peruse some of Cyprus’ geology.

Using seismology in his PhD, Chris will study the deep structure of Cyprus, including the Troodos Ophiolite.

PhD vivas

Robert Zimmerman served as an external examiner on Mehdi Musivand Arzanfudi’s PhD thesis at the Delft University of Technology, entitled “Computational Modeling of Multiphysics Multidomain Multiphase Flow in Fracturing Porous Media: Leakage Hazards in CO2 Geosequestration”. Joining him on the panel of examiners were Michael Celia of Princeton University, and Rainer Helmig of the University of Stuttgart. The candidate, supervisors, and examiners all had the opportunity to wear fancy Dutch academic attire.

Outreach

Elizabeth Day gave a talk on Tectonics to 200 sixth formers and teachers at the East London branch of the Geographical Association in the Geography department at Queen Mary University London.