An overview of the recent publications, events and general exciting work that's been happening here in the ESE Department this summer.

Contents

Publications
Conferences, Lectures and Seminars
Research Grants
Research Activity
Impact and Media
Outreach
Alumni News

Publications

Speirs, J., Balcombe, P., Johnson, E., Martin, J. & Hawkes. A. A greener gas grid: What are the options -Short communication Energy Policy, Volume 118, July 2018, Pages 291-297  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421518302027

Speirs, J. The carbon credentials of hydrogen gas networks and supply chains - Review article. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 91, August 2018, Pages 1077-1088 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032118302983

Salimzadeh, S., Paluszny, A., & Zimmerman, R. W. (2018). Effect of cold CO₂ injection on fracture apertures and growth. Int. J. Greenhouse Gas Control, 74, 130-141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijggc.2018.04.013

 Vega-Garcia, D., Brito-Parada, P. R. & Cilliers, J.J.  (2018). Optimising small hydrocyclone design using 3D printing and CFD simulations. Chemical Engineering Journal, 350, 653–659.DOI: 10.1016/j.cej.2018.06.016

 Heaney, C. E., Buchan, A. G., Pain, C. C., and Jewer, S. (2018) Reactor Simulators and Reduced Order Modelling. Nuclear Future, May/June, 49-54.

Reyes, F., Lin, Q., Cilliers, J.J. & Neethling,  S.J. (2018). Quantifying mineral liberation by particle grade and surface exposure using X-ray microCT. Minerals Engineering,  125, 75-82. DOI: 10.1016/j.mineng.2018.05.028.

I. Mackay, E. Mendez, I. Molina, A.R. Videla, J.J. Cilliers, P.R. Brito-Parada, (2018) Dynamic froth stability of copper flotation tailings. Minerals Engineering, 124, 103-107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2018.05.005.

Conferences, Lectures and Seminars

The Sustainable Gas Institute (SGI) and Research Centre for Gas Innovation (RCGI) are hosting their third annual conference this year in natural gas sustainability in São Paulo, Brazil. The two-day, SGRI 2018 conference will take place on September 25th and 26th.

The conference brings stakeholders together to meet, share knowledge, exchange ideas, gain insight, and showcase expertise to fully understand the role of natural gas in the global energy landscape.

In 2017, we produced a short video to show the highlights of the conference. To find out about the conference, please visit the SGI website. The conference is open to registrations.  Visit our Eventbrite page to register.

Phil Mannion and PhD student Ale Chiarenza both attended the annual meeting of the European Association of Vertebrate Palaeontologists, this year held in Lisbon, from the 26–29^th June. Phil gave an invited talk as part of a sauropod dinosaur symposium, with two further co-authored talks, and Alepresented their work on modelling dinosaur diversity in the lead-up to the K/Pg mass extinction.

PhD student Robin "Dobbin" Thomas gave a talk entitled  “Finite element-based simulation of the growth of dense three-dimensional fracture networks”, at the 52^nd U.S. Rock Mechanics Symposium in Seattle, on 18 June, and a talk entitled “Effect of fracture growth velocity exponent on fluid flow through geomechanically-grown 3D fracture networks”, at the 2^nd International Conference on Discrete Fracture Networks in Engineering, in Seattle, on 22 June. Both papers were co-authored with Adriana Paluszny and Robert Zimmerman.

Robert Zimmerman gave two talks at the 2018 Conference of the Engineering Mechanics Institute, at MIT: “Poroelastic Behavior of Rocks under Uniaxial Strain Conditions”, and “Stability of Deviated Boreholes in Anisotropic Formations”. The latter presentation was co-authored by past and present ESE PhD students Jasmin Ambrose and Beni Setiawan.

Adriana Paluszny gave a talk entitled “Permeability tensor of three-dimensional fractured porous rocks and fracture pattern growth”, at the Computational Methods in Water Resources 2018 Conference, in Saint-Malo, France, on 6 June.

Dick Selley gave a presentation ‘Les conséquences passées et future du changement de climat pour la viticulture Britannique’ at a conference ‘Une enterprise très cool. 2000 ans de vin francais et la diffusion de la viticulture dans le nord’ in Ghent, Belgium, on 1 June.

Ruth Davey and Fransesco Palci attended the Annual EAGE Conference held in Copenhagen. Ruth presented her ePoster on molecular weight fractionation trends during shale gas production whilst Fransesco presented his ePoster on the unconventional petroleum potential of the Gainsborough Trough, onshore UK.

Jan Cilliers visited Russia in May where he gave lectures to students of Saint Petersburg Mining University (Russia's oldest technical university, founded in October 1773 by Empress Catherine the Great). Photos from this visit can be found here.

Research Grants

Phil Mannion has been awarded a Royal Society International Exchange grant (£2100) to start a new collaboration with Romanian and Spanish colleagues, revising the dwarfed sauropod dinosaurs of the latest Cretaceous of Transylvania.

Robert Zimmerman and Adriana Paluszny were awarded £280,000 by SKB, the Swedish Nuclear Waste Management Organisation, to study rock spalling around tunnels and other openings in geological disposal facilities for radioactive waste.

Michele Paulatto has been awarded a 5-year NERC Independent Research Fellowship (£ 716,022 GBP). The project will start in October and is titled "Building a tectonic plate: water, magma and faults in the oceanic lithosphere"

Research Activity

EnVision is a mission led by Imperial College and is led by Richard Ghail. The core science team includes Philippa Mason; EnVision has been selected by the European Space Agency to proceed into Phase0/PhaseA definition study (http://sci.esa.int/cosmic-vision/60257-esa-selects-three-new-mission-concepts-for-study/).

EnVision is one of three finalists: the other two are SPICA (an IR telescope) and THESEUS (an X-ray telescope), so EnVision is the only solar system (planetary) mission left in the competition!

It will be funded largely by ESA, UKSA and NASA. EnVision has three core instruments: VenSAR (UK), VEM (Germany, Belgium & France) & SRS (Italy). These are designed to answer questions about the level and nature of current geological activity, the sequence of geological events that generated its range of surface features, and whether Venus once had oceans or was hospitable for life.

News of the mission’s selection was quickly picked up by the New Scientist (https://www.newscientist.com/article/2168346-esa-eyes-venus-mission-or-space-telescope-to-launch-by-2030/) and by a number of other newspapers.

Ivar Stefansson from the University of Bergen, and Sofia Roucan from Paris ENSTA, are each visiting the Rock Mechanics Group for a few months this summer, working on numerical modelling of fracture growth, with Adriana Paluszny, Robin “Dobbin” Thomas, and Robert Zimmerman.

Impact and Media

Dick Selley gave an interview for Sky News about the 27th June Newdigate, Surrey Earthquake, the second in the area in 3 months.

Phil Mannion and Adriana Paluszny were both invited to afternoon tea at Buckingham Palace on the 13^thJune, as part of their Royal Society fellowships, at which they met and discussed their research with Prince Andrew.

Outreach

Philippa Mason & the EnVision team also had a stand at the Imperial Festival in April 2018. They were inundated by questions from kids of all ages as well as their parents – lots of potential Earth & planetary geoscientists!

Jennifer Quye-Sawyer gave a Nature Live talk at the Natural History Museum on 15th June. The talk was titled Reading the land. She spoke about her research, and the link between geomorphology and active tectonics.

Alumni News

Former ESE PhD student Gaurav Singh will soon be taking up a position as an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. Gaurav completed his PhD in 2014 within the Rio Tinto Centre for Advanced Mineral Recovery, under the supervision of Robert Zimmerman. Congratulations, Gaurav!