June 5 2009 Issue 50
Departmental Bulletin
Papers
Papers – accepted Allen, M.B. (2009). Roles of strike-slip faults in continental deformation: examples from the active Arabia-Eurasia collision. In: The Evolving Continents: Understanding Processes of Continental Growth (eds Kusky, T. and Xiao, W.J.), Geological Society Special Publication. Field, M., T.M. Gernon, A. Mock, A. Walters, R.S.J. Sparks & D.A. Jerram (2009). Variations of olivine abundance and grain size in the Snap Lake kimberlite intrusion, Northwest Territories, Canada: A possible proxy for diamonds. Lithos. Humphreys, E.R.. & Y.L. Niu, (2009). On the composition of ocean island basalts (OIB): The effects of lithospheric thickness variation and mantle metasomatism, Lithos. Jerram. D.J; Alex Mock; Matthew Field; Graham R Davis & Richard J Brown (2009). 3D crystal size distributions: a case study on quantifying olivine populations in kimberlites. Lithos. Nelson, C.E. Dougal A. Jerram & Richard W. Hobbs (2009). Flood basalt facies from borehole data: implications for prospectivity and volcanology in volcanic rifted margins. Petroleum Geoscience (note PhD student paper). Watts, A. B., M. Rodger, C. Peirce, C.J. Greenroyd, & R.W. Hobbs (2009). Seismic structure, gravity anomalies and flexure of the Amazon continental margin, NE Brazil, Journal of Geophysical Research doi:10.1029/2008JB006259. Papers – published Holohan, E.P., Troll, V.R., Errington, M., Donaldson, C.H., Nicoll, G. & Emeleus, C.H. (2009). The Southern Mountains Zone, Isle of Rum, Scotland: volcanic and sedimentary processes upon an uplifted and subsided magma chamber roof. Geological Magazine, 146, 1-19. Nabovati, A., Llewellin, E.W. & Sousa, A.C.M., (2009). A general model for the permeability of fibrous porous media based on fluid flow simulations using the lattice Boltzmann method. Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing 40, 860-869. Nelson, C.A., Jerram, D.A., Single, R.T. & Hobbs, R.W. (2009). Understanding the facies architecture of flood basalts and volcanic rifted margins and its effect on geophysical properties. In: Varming, T and Ziska, H. (eds) Faroe Islands Exploration Conference: Proceedings of the 2nd Conference. Annales Societatis Scientiarum Færoensis, supplementum 48, 84-103. (note PhD student paper). Song, S.G., Y.L. Niu, L.F. Zhang, C.J. Wei & J.G. Liou, (2009). Tectonic evolution of early Paleozoic HP metamorphic rocks in the North Qilian Mountains, NW China: New perspectives, Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 35, 334-353.
June 5 2009 Issue 50 Song, S.G., L. Su, Y.L. Niu, G.B. Zhang, & L.F. Zhang, (2009). Two types of peridotite in North Qaidam UHPM belt and their tectonic implications for oceanic and continental subduction: A review, Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 35, 285-297. Zhang, G.B., L.F. Zhang, S.G. Song & Y.L. Niu, (2009). UHP metamorphic evolution and SHRIMP geochronology of a meta-ophiolitic gabbro in the North Qaidam, NW China, Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 35, 310-322.
Awards and promotions
Dave Selby has been promoted to a Senior Lectureship with effect from October 1st 2009. Bob Holdsworth has been awarded a NERC KE Fellowship for 3 years effective from October 2009. This is a 0.5FTE appointment. He will represent the interests of both the DEI and IHRR. David Sagy has been awarded “The Norman H. Foster Memorial Grant”, which is awarded annually to a qualified graduate student through the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Grants-in-Aid Program. The granted funds will be used to support David’s fieldwork on fault and fracture patterns developed within Chalk units exposed at Flamborough Head, UK. PESGB Svalbard Field Trip: Jo Morris has been chosen to attend a PESGB Council run field trip to Svalbard, Norway. The PESGB offered a limited number of places to postgraduate students with an external cost per person of £5500. The trip will be led by Erling Siggerund of SGS with the aim of studying the onshore geology that has direct relevance to the offshore petroleum systems. Due to remoteness of the region the trip will take place on a boat that will sail around the islands to look at some spectacular outcrops that range from Carboniferous rift basins to Eocene turbiditic deposits.
Fieldwork/cruises
Fieldtrip - In April, David Damby (IHRR/Earth Sciences PhD student) travelled to Ladakh (Northern Indian Himalayas) to carry out fieldwork as part of Claire Horwell's NERC-funded project on desert dust particles and health. He was accompanied by Dr Adam Durant (Cambridge University). Together, they carried out particle collection (on filters and from deposits), air quality monitoring and personal exposure assessment. Ladakh is well known for its remote, unindustrialised location yet many of the population around Leh suffer from debilitating lung disease which is thought to be caused by seasonal dust storms. The particles will be studied for their crystalline silica content and for surface features which might make the dust particularly toxic.
Talks and presentations
Two Durham Earth scientists, Dr Lisa Baldini and Dr James Baldini, were featured in a Channel 4 News piece on June 2, 2009, entitled ‘Can stalagmites predict climate change?’. These researchers, along with Dr Colin MacPherson, also at Durham, are reconstructing Polish palaeoclimate and the North Atlantic Oscillation over the past 20,000 years using stalagmites from Niedzwiedzia (Bear) Cave, Kletno, Poland, as part of Lisa Baldini’s Marie Curie Research Fellowship. The news piece can be viewed on the Channel 4 News Home Page or via the link: http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/can+stalagmites+predict+climate+chan ge/3189862
June 5 2009 Issue 50 Dougal Jerram was invited to give a keynote talk on 'flood basalts and volcanic rifted margins' at the DFG funded SAMPLE Colloquim (South Atlantic Margin Processes and Links with onshore Evolution), in Munich, 4th May. The following presentations were made at the EGU General Assembly, Vienna, 19-24th April. Maurice Tucker on the occasion of the presentation of the Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Sedimentology: Limestones - the love of my life - sun, sea, cycles. Posters: Manzo, E., Perri, E. & Tucker, M.E. Environmental vs microbial control on Ca-carbonate precipitation in fluvial tufa (NW Calabria-Italy) Manzo, E., Mawson, M., Perri, E. & Tucker, M.E. Tufa in Northern England: depositional facies, carbonate mineral fabrics and role of biomineralization.
Welcome
Alex Gonzalez Nakazawa started work with OBIC in May. He completed his BSc in Electronic Engineering at the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico in 1999. In 2002, he completed the MSc in Electronic Instrumentation Systems at UMIST in Manchester and was awarded the PhD in Electronic Engineering at the University of Manchester in 2007. From August 2007 to March 2009, he worked as an RFID applications engineer at RFIQ Solutions Ltd in Manchester, developing Radio Frequency Identification systems. He will be working in OBIC improving the current generation of Ocean Bottom instruments and developing the next generation of instruments. Visiting Fellow Dr Sarbani Patranabis-Deb from the Department of Geology, Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta is studying Precambrian limestones with Maurice Tucker. Elena Manzo, from Calabria, is working with Maurice Tucker on tufas there and in Northeast England. Elisabetta del Bello, a first year PhD student from the University of Bologna and INGV Rome, is visiting until the end of the month. Betta's PhD will investigate strombolian eruption mechanisms. Whilst she is here she and Ed Llewellin will work to develop the physical and conceptual framework for her studies, and carry out lab work here and in Lancaster.