An overview of recent publications, events and happenings in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering.

Content

Publications
Conference Talk and Upcoming Webinars
Awards
Research Grants
Research Activity
PhD Vivas
New Staff

Publications

Moore, R. E. T., Ullah, I., de Oliveira, V. H., Hammond, S., Strekopytov, S., Tibbett, M., Dunwell, J. M., Rehkämper, M. (2020). Cadmium isotope fractionation reveals genetic variation in Cd uptake and translocation by Theobroma cacao and role of natural resistance-associated macrophage protein 5 and heavy metal ATPase-family transporters. Horticulture Research, 7, (71).

Pizzi, M., Lonergan, L., Whittaker, A.C. & Mayall, M. 2020 Growth of a thrust fault array in space and time: an example from the deep-water Niger Delta. Journal of Structural Geology.

Sievwright, R.H., O’Neill, H. St. C., Tolley, J., Wilkinson, J.J. & Berry, A.J. (2020) Diffusion and partition coefficients of minor and trace elements in magnetite as a function of oxygen fugacity at 1150 ºC. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 175:40.

Sitorus, F., & Brito-Parada, P.R. (2020). A multiple criteria decision making method to weight the sustainability criteria of renewable energy technologies under uncertainty. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 127, 109891.

Wallwork, J.G., Barral, N., Kramer, S.C., Ham, D.A., Piggott, M.D. (2020). Goal-Oriented Error Estimation and Mesh Adaptation for Shallow Water Modelling. Springer Nature Applied Sciences, 2, 1053--1063.

Wang, H., & Brito-Parada, P.R. (2020). Coalescence Dynamics of Particle-Laden Bubbles. Langmuir.

Zhang, Z., Geiger, S., Rood, M.P., Jacquemyn, C.E.M.M., Jackson, M.D., Hampson, G.J., De Carvalho, F.M., Silva, C.C.M.M., Silva, J.D.M. & Costa Sousa, M. (2020). Fast flow computation methods on unstructured tetrahedral meshes for rapid reservoir modelling. Computational Geosciences, 24, 641-661.

Conference Talk and Upcoming Webinars

On 4 May, Cristina Saceanu gave a presentation at the online 2020 EGU General Assembly, entitled "Impact of deposition borehole geometry on mechanical spalling in nuclear waste repositories". Cristina is a PhD student in the Rock Mechanics group, working with Adriana Paluszny and Robert Zimmerman, on a project funded by SKB, the Swedish nuclear waste management organisation. The abstract of Cristina’s talk is available online.

The H2FC Supergen Hub will hold live webinars in the beginning of June to launch two new reports. ESE community is invited to join both events which will be chaired by Professor Nigel Brandon of Imperial College London. The event will include a short presentation from the author followed by a panel discussion with a Q&A session.

• Opportunities for hydrogen and fuel cell technologies to contribute to clean growth in the UK by Paul Dodds et al. with launch on 4 June 11:00-12:00.
• Delivering negative emissions from biomass-derived hydrogen by Niall MacDowell et al. with launch on 8 June 11:00-12:00.

Awards

Kartikeya Singh Sangwan has received the 2020 Postgraduate Grant of the International Association of Sedimentologists (IAS). The grant which is worth €1000 is to support his PhD research fieldwork in Spain. The IAS grant scheme is designed to offer financial support to PhD students for fieldwork, data acquisition and analysis, visits to other institutes to use specialized facilities, or participation in field excursions directly related to the PhD research subject.

Paulina Quintanilla, a PhD student in the Advanced Mineral Processing Research Group, has been awarded one of the IoM³ Scholarships 2020. The scholarship is a fully-funded 3-month visit to the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Santiago, Chile to carry out experiments in a laboratory-scale flotation circuit. During the visit, Paulina will be validating the control and optimisation algorithms that are being developed as part of her PhD research.

Research Grants

Jamie Wilkinson, working with PDRA Matthew Loader, has secured funding from BHP Minerals for a 3-year research project investigating the significance of mineral inclusions in zircon as recorders of magmatic conditions conducive to the formation of porphyry-copper ore systems. The project started on 6 April and will be studying zircons from a range of porphyry systems and unmineralised granitoids worldwide. Laser ablation ICP-MS U-Pb geochronology and zircon trace element chemical analysis will be carried out in the LODE Laboratory at the NHM, in addition to microprobe and LA-ICP-MS analyses of mineral inclusions. Zircons are extremely robust and can preserve primary chemical information that gets obscured in many samples from porphyry-related intrusions because of the extensive hydrothermal alteration that occurs.

Research Activity

A short article on the IMPaCT project test work carried at the Olovo Mine (Bosnia & Herzegovina) is now available on Prometia's website. ESE's Advanced Mineral Processing Research Group carried out this test work in collaboration with colleagues from BRGM, France, to assess ore variability in a containerised mineral processing plant. The IMPaCT project aims to establish a new switch on-switch off mining paradigm to improve the viability of many critical metals and other small complex deposits, particularly in Europe.

PhD Vivas

Congratulations to Dr Ruth Davey, she passed her lockdown viva on 14 May 2020.

New Staff

Emily Govan has started as a new communications officer for Sustainable Gas Institute and the H2FC Supergen Hub.