UCL Deep-Water Research Group

UCL DEPARTMENT OF EARTH SCIENCES
DEEP-WATER RESEARCH GROUP

Nicole BAYLISS - completed 2010
Topic: Quantitative Analysis of Deep Marine Environments, Ainsa baisn, Spanish Pyrenees
Grant Body: NERC & Shell
Supervisor(s): Prof Kevin Pickering & Dr. John Millington (Shell)

Nicole began her PhD in 2002 after graduating from Southampton University. Her research includes detailed geological mapping, quantitative analysis and characterisation of the Ainsa submarine fan complex, the study of bed thickness distributions in the Ainsa Basin, and the classification of Mass Transport Complexes.

Publication(s):Conference Abstract. Bayliss, N. 2003. Turbidite Bed from Borehole and Outcrop in Modern and Ancient Environments, Pickering, K.T & Bayliss, N. and Tectonic Control on Confined Eocene, South Spanish Pyrenees. AAPG Meeting, Houston, Texas.

Aidan Foley Kanchan DAS GUPTA - completed 2009
Topic: Petrography and chemostratigraphy of the Mid Eocene deep-marine clastic sediments, Ainsa and Jaca basins, Spanish Pyrenees
Grant Body: Dorothy Hodgkin Postgraduate Award (NERC & SP)
Supervisor(s): Prof(s) Kevin Pickering and Tony Hurford

Kanchan started his PhD in October,2004 promptly after finishing his undergraduate and postgraduate studies in India at Jadavpur University,Kolkata and IIT Bombay. He did his MTech project at Karlsruhe University, Germany under sandwich programme.

His study, using mainly petrographic and chemostratigraphic techniques, aims to fingerprint the sand bodies within the Ainsa and Jaca basins as a means of correlation, in order to better constrain and understand the evolution of the basinal sediments. A pilot study at UCL (unpublished) has established promising petrographic trends that require further and more detailed research – the main focus of his work. Fission-track analysis will be used to provide thermo-chronometric constraints. The results of this study provide generic models for the evolution of other foreland basins throughout the world. Also, there are potential economic benefits in terms of understanding and characterising hydrocarbon reservoirs, e.g., net/gross sand (reservoir), porosity, and vertical and horizontal permeability.

Publication(s):Conference abstract.Provenance studies of the deep-marine Ainsa basin, Spanish Pyrenees using combined U-Pb and fission track techniques. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, Volume 70, Issue 18, Supplement 1, August-September 2006.

Thomas HEARD - completed 2009
Topic: Sedimentology and Ichnology of the Ainsa-Jaca Basin, Spanish Pyrenees.
Grant Body: NERC Case Industrial Studentship

Supervisor(s):Prof Kevin Pickering & Dr A.D.Reynolds(BP)

Thomas began his PhD in 2002 after graduating with a BSc in Geology at the University of Birmingham. His research interests include deep-water sedimentology and ichnology. Thomas will be working for Chevron ETC from 2007.

Publication(s): In review. Heard, T.G. & Pickering, K.T. Trace fossils as diagnostic indicators of deep-marine environments, Ainsa - Jaca basin, Spanish Pyrenees. Sedimentology.

Conference abstracts.Ultra-high resolution outcrop-subsurface study of the ichnofacies and sedimentology of mid-Eocene deep-marine systems, Spanish Pyrenees. In: International Conference on Deep Water Processes in Modern and Ancient Environments, Barcelona, 2003, pp. 17.

Ultra-high resolution outcrop-subsurface study of the ichnofacies and sedimentology of the Mid-Eocene Ainsa I Fan, Spanish Pyrenees. In: British Sedimentological Research Group Annual General Meeting, Leeds, 2003, pp. 46.

Clare SUTCLIFFE
Topic: Eocene Guaso system, deep marine slope/base of slope, south central Pyrenees, Spain
Grant Body: NERC & Shell
Supervisor(s):Prof Kevin Pickering & Dr. John Millington (Shell)

Clare began her PhD in summer 2005 after her graduation from Imperial College, London in 2004. In between she worked as a geotehcnical engineer.

In her PhD she looks at the youngest sandbody system in the Ainsa Basin and the critical relationship with the sediments above (slope/delta) and below (Morillo system). The work carries on from that of Nicole Bayliss looking at the architecture of the sandbodies and MTC’s and the reasons why such sheet-like sandbodies occur as the “end signature” of basins.The turbidite systems of the Ainsa basin are internationally recognised as one of the most important natural laboratories for studying deep marine clastic sequences. They have been used to develop and support generic models for deep marine deposits, from process-based to system based perspectives, and these ideas have been applied globally by academics and industry alike. Despite having a good understanding of deep-water sub marine fans, their architecture and controlling processes, there are few published studies of more sheet-like slope and base of slope deep water clastic systems and their characteristic depositional processes.

Publication(s): In review.Sutcliffe, C. & Pickering, K.T. End-signature of deep-marine basin-fill, as a structurally confined low-gradient clastic slope: the Middle Eocene Guaso system, south-central Spanish Pyrenees. Geology.