May 2017 ESE Newsletter

Introducing Vouivria, the earliest known titanosauriform sauropod

Contents

Publications
Conferences, Lectures and Seminars
Awards
Research Grants
Impact and Media
Departmental Activities
Outreach
Fieldwork
English Channel Relay
Professor Tim Shaw Obituary

Publications

Amitai, S. and Blumenfeld, R. (2017). Affine and topological structural entropies in granular statistical mechanics: explicit calculations and equation of state. Phys. Rev. E, 95, p.052905.

Boon, M., Bijeljic, B., Krevor, S. (2017). Observations of the impact of rock heterogeneity on solute spreading and mixing, Water Resources Research, doi:10.1002/2016WR019912

Davies, A. J. and John, C. M. (2017). Reducing contamination parameters for clumped isotope analysis: The effect of lowering Porapak™ Q trap temperature below -50?C. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry. DOI:10.1002/rcm.7902

Huq, F., Smalley, P. C., Mørkved, P.T., Johansen, I., Yarushina, V., and Johansen, H. (2017). The Longyearbyen CO2 Lab: Fluid communication in reservoir and caprock. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, 63, 59–76.

Mannion, P. D., Allain, R., and Moine, O. (2017). The earliest known titanosauriform sauropod dinosaur and the evolution of Brachiosauridae. PeerJ, 5, e3217 (doi: 10.7717/peerj.3217).

Nielsen, S.G., Prytulak, J., Blusztajn, J., Yunchao, S., Auro, M., Regelous, M., Walker, J. (2017). Thallium isotopes as tracers of recycled materials in subduction zones: review and new data from Tonga-Kermadec and Central America. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 339, 23–40.

Paluszny, A., Zimmerman, R. W. (2017). Modelling of primary fragmentation in block caving mines using a finite-element based fracture mechanics approach. Geomechanics and Geophysics for Geo-Energy and Geo-Resources, 3, 121–130.

Petrescu, L., Darbyshire, F., Bastow, I., Totten, E., and Gilligan, A. (2017), Seismic anisotropy of Precambrian lithosphere: Insights from Rayleigh wave tomography of the eastern Superior Craton, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 122, doi:10.1002/2016JB013599.

Pupim, F. N., Assine, M. L., Sawakuchi, A. O. (2017). Late Quaternary Cuiabá megafan, Brazilian Pantanal: Channel patterns and paleoenvironmental changes. Quaternary International. doi: org/10.1016/j.quaint.2017.01.013

Wang, X., Lei, Q., Lonergan, L., Jourde, H., Gosselin, O., Cosgrove, J. W. (2017). Heterogeneous fluid flow in layered fractured carbonates and its implication for generation of incipient karst. Adv Water Resour doi: 10.1016/j.advwatres.2017.05.016.

Conferences, Lectures and Seminars

Robert Zimmerman delivered an invited keynote plenary lecture entitled “The Effect of Pore Structure and Pore Fluids on the Elastic Moduli and Wavespeeds in Porous Rocks”, at the 9th International Conference on Porous Media (InterPore), in Rotterdam, on 10 May. This meeting is the largest annual international conference specifically devoted to porous media, and was attended by over 700 participants from academia and industry, including 27 students and staff from Imperial College.

Julie Prytulak gave an invited talk titled “Subduction Geochemistry….for Geophysicists” at the “Big Transition zone: below and beyond” Deep Earth meeting at University College London.

This year’s Pint of Science Festival ran between 15–17 May, this international festival aims to get researchers from all over the world down to their local pubs to talk science. Martin Mangler, Patric Simoes Pereira, Rachel Bertram, Paula Rowinska and Dennis Vega Garcia organised a Planet Earth themed event in Hammersmith. Four speakers from Earth Science and Engineering gave talks at the Hand and Flower pub. Gareth Collins kicked off our ESE line up on Monday evening followed by Susan Little on Tuesday and then rounding off the events on Wednesday were Christopher Jackson and Gareth Roberts. All three evenings were a roaring success with lots of members of the public learning new things. The festival will return next year across London (and the world) so make sure you look out for more information then!

The Sustainable Gas Institute (SGI) will be launching its third report in their White Paper Series on 20 July: ‘A greener gas grid: What are the options?’ This comprehensive report evaluates the overall potential for decarbonising the gas network, including the use of biomethane and hydrogen in existing gas infrastructure. Dr Jamie Speirs, co-author of the paper, has examined the options for creating low carbon gas networks, exploring the technical issues, as well as the decarbonisation potential and costs associated with each option. Join us for the evening launch event, where there will also be an Expert Panel including Professor Jim Watson, Research Director, UK Energy Research Centre, Dan Sadler, Project Manager of the H21 Leeds City Gate team and Dr David Joffe, Team leader at the UK Committee on Climate Change. Register for the launch event here.

Awards

Imperial College Union held their 2017 Student Academic Choice Award (SACA) award ceremony on 15 May. The SACAs allows all students to recognise, reward and celebrate excellence amongst College staff. Many staff in ESE received student nominations under various categories. Rebecca Bell and Ian Bastow were also shortlisted for the SACA for “Best Feedback”, and Emma Passmore was shortlisted for “Best Innovation”. Peter Fitch won the SACA for “Best Teaching for Postgraduates”.

David Wilson will be next year’s lecturer for the Early Career Researchers Prominent Lecturer Programme, awarded by the Geochemistry Group of the Geological Society. Each year this programme funds a researcher to undertake a lecture tour of the U.K. and planning for that is underway! David’s proposed talks are on the topics of “Lead isotopes tracing earth system processes: from human pollution to continental weathering” and “Exploring deglacial climate variability through the window of deep-sea coral geochemistry”.

Research Grants

Phil Mannion has been awarded a 5-year Royal Society University Research Fellowship (worth £486,000), which he will begin in December. Phil’s work will examine ‘Climate’s role in shaping Paleogene tetrapod macroevolution’, providing a baseline for future predictions of the long-term responses of organisms to global warming.

Fabiano Pupim (PI) secured the Early Career Researcher Grant worth £4,360.00 from the British Society for Geomorphology for the project: “Late Quaternary variation in erosion rates and landscape changes in the Amazon River basin”. The project will be conducted in a partnership between the CosmIC geochemistry laboratories (ESE) and the Laboratory of Luminescence of the University of São Paulo (Brazil).

Impact and Media

Phil Mannion’s paper describing a new dinosaur from France, the earliest relative of Brachiosaurus, received lots of media attention, including coverage by the BBC and Guardian.

Departmental Activities

Congratulations to “The Desengers” (Till, Sam, Shayan, Alex, Agnese, Annafiulie, Jen and their teddy mascot) from Design Engineering who won the ESE Quiz with 43 marks, and team “Powerhouse” from the Faculty of Engineering who came second. We are delighted that our guest teams did so well!

Thank you to everyone who took part, we hope you had a great time. Special thanks to the PhD students that helped collect the score sheets, Emma Watson for checking everyone’s answers, the ESE Support team members that helped set-up and clear-up before and after the event and the quiz master for pronouncing some of the team names correctly. Please forward any feedback to Helen Stoneham (h.stoneham@imperial.ac.uk)

Outreach

Emma Passmore and 1st year PhD student, Irda Lokman, gave a career talk on Geoscience to Year 10 students at an Ofsted outstanding school, the Islamia Girls Secondary School in Queen’s Park, London. Emma gave fascinating talk on geoscience and opportunities at Imperial College, GCSE and A-levels requirements for geoscience to undergrad course.

Irda shared a presentation on “Celebrating Women in Geoscience”, that touches the subject of women as geoscience professionals from diverse backgrounds and associates.

Fieldwork

Seventy-seven first year UGs spent two weeks in the Sorbas Basin of southern Spain, exploring the stratigraphy, structural geology and volcanology of this diverse basin-and-range region. Additional studies of the geomorphology and biostratigraphy, plus a week of independent mapping completed the picture. Many thanks to staff Philippa Mason, Emma Passmore, Phil Mannion and Alan Spencer, and PhD demonstrators Christine Bischoff, Alex Hughes, Jennifer Quye-Sawyer, Gaia Stucky de Quay, Jonathan Rio and Stephen Watkins, for a fantastic trip.

The second year geology undergraduates were also on fieldwork this month for two weeks in Kinlochleven and Assynt, Scotland. The trip was led by Mike Streule assisted by John Cosgrove (and Havoc), Craig Magee, Julie Prytulak and PhD students Ruth Davey, Martin Mangler and Auriol Rae.

The third year geology students spent 12 days in Sardinia led by Matt Genge and Mark Sutton studying the island's diverse geology.

Meanwhile, Alex Whittaker led 4th year students on a geological transect across the Italian Apennines, to study the growth and decay of a mountain belt. Alex was assisted by PhD students Amelia Davies, Helen Lacey, Marco Pizzi and Christopher Brewer.

English Channel Relay

Emma Watson has taken on the challenge of swimming the English Channel as part of a 3-person relay in an effort to raise money for several charities. Emma qualified several weeks ago after a two hour swim in Dover harbour and will take part in the relay sometime between 30 June and 8 July 2017. Follow these links if you would like to donate to the following charities and support Emma and her co-swimmers: Endometriosis UK, Frank Water Projects, The Passage and research into motor neuron disease.

Professor Tim Shaw Obituary

Obituary - Emeritus Professor Tim Shaw