Quantitative Clastics Laboratory
Current Events
Dr. Lesli Wood will present a talk to the Houston SIPES monthly luncheon and meeting, on Thursday May 15 at the Petroleum Club in downtown Houston. The title of the talk will be "Quantitative Seismic Geomorphology: Revolutionizing our picture of the paleo-Earth." For more information see the site at sipeshouston.org. May 14, 2013
On May 6th and 7th, Lesli Wood and Lorena Moscardelli visited IMP (Instituto Mexicano del Petroleo) offices in Mexico City where they talked about deepwater deposits and the regional geology of the GOM. Most of the meeting was devoted to discussions associated with the nature of hybrid flows on deepwater deposits and how to recognize them. Click on images to view larger. May 9 2013
From April 20th to 22nd, Lesli Wood and Lorena Moscardelli visited outcrops of the Jackfork Formation in Arkansas. The field trip was led by Dr. Roger Slatt from the University of Oklahoma and included visits to the Baugartner and Big Rock quarries, the DeGray and Dierks spillway locations, a "parking lot" outcrop located next to the McCain Mall in Little Rock and the Pinnacle State Park. The Jackfork Formation is a Pennsylvanian unit that contains spectacular deep-water deposits, including sheet sands, channelized features and mass transport deposits.
Click on images to view larger. May 9 2013
Maria Prieto has been granted $500 by the Ed Picou Fellowship Grant for Graduate Studies (GCSSEPM Foundation) to continue her work on the study of gravity-driven versus current-controlled processes and interactions in the ultra deepwater region of the Gulf of Mexico. Maria's work is supervised by Drs. Lorena Moscardelli and Lesli Wood. Congratulations to Maria!
Apr 22, 2013
Dr. Peter Flaig visited with faculty, scientists, and students at the Huffington Department of Earth Sciences at Southern Methodist University and gave an invited talk at entitled "The Late Cretaceous coastal plain of Arctic Alaska: Placing Pachyrhinosaurus Perotorum and other North Slope dinosaurs in a paleoenvironmental context." The Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas Texas houses a collection of Alaskan dinosaurs including Pachyrhinosaurus Perotorum. Dr. Flaig and Dolores van der Kolk assisted in the collection of those dinosaurs and the interpretation of the paleoenvironments found on the Cretaceous Arctic Alaska coastal plain. The collection is curated by Dr. Anthony Fiorillo, a paleontologist who specializes in taphomomy (the study of the processes such as burial, decay, and preservation that affect animal and plant remains as they become fossilized) and focuses on Alaskan Dinosaurs.
Click on images to view larger. Apr 16, 2013
And Migdalys Salazar has done it again! The 2013 GSA Research Grant committee has awarded Migdalys with $2,125 to continue her research in the Taranaki Basin. This is in addition to recent awards that Migdalys has obtained from the Ed Picou Fellowship Grant for Graduate Studies ($1,000), the AAPG Peter Warren Gester Memorial Grant ($1,500) and the Jesse L. Brundrett Memorial Endowed Presidential Scholarship ($3,500). Grand total: $8,125! Migdalys is studying the Giant Foresets Formation in the Taranaki Basin under the watchful supervision of Drs. Lorena Moscardelli and Lesli Wood. Congratulations to Migdalys. Apr 11, 2013
Brian Kiel, Dolores van der Kolk, Jessica Hudock, and Maria Prieto exhibited and discussed their current research at the Bureau of Economic Geology Industry Day held at the Core Research Center on the J.J. Pickle Research Campus. Mar 27, 2013
On March 22, Lorena Moscardelli was the featured speaker at the BEG Friday Seminar Series. Her talk was entitled "From Mass Transport Deposits to Mars: 10 Years Later—The Journey!" The abstract and streaming video link are available here. Mar 26, 2013
QCL Ph.D. Candidate Brian Kiel is attending an Earthcube workshop in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Monday and Tuesday, March 25–26, 2013. The purpose of the workshop is to identify and articulate the cyberinfrastructure (CI) needs and applications of the broad sedimentary geology community (SGC). The effort is intended to build consensus within the SGC with respect to the National Science Foundation's EarthCube effort (http://earthcube.ning.com/). Mar 11, 2013
Khushboo Arora (GRA with QCL IA) and Menal Gupta (GRA with EGL) placed first in the SEG Gulf Coast Challenge Bowl being held March 5th in Houston, Texas, in conjunction with Geophysical Society of Houston Spring Symposium. The SEG Challenge Bowl is an international contest testing students' breadth and depth of knowledge about the field of geoscience. The quiz show format features intense competition as the contestants attempt to buzz in first with the answers to challenging geoscience questions. Four other teams competed; one from Rice University, one from The University of Texas at San Antonio and two teams from The University of Houston. Khushboo was the top scoring participant among all competing. Congratulations, Khushboo and Minal! Hook 'Em Horns! Click image on right to view larger. Mar 6, 2013
Charles Thomas Brothers will be presenting a paper at the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference which will be held at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center, The Woodlands, Texas, March 18–22, 2013. Mr. Brothers is addressing the geophysical investigation of various geomorphologic and deeper stratigraphic features found at the Martian North Pole and surrounding area. Mar 5, 2013
Senator the Honorable Kevin Ramnarine, Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs (MEEA), Trinidad and Tobago
Ambassador from Trinidad and Tobago to the United States, His Excellency Dr. Neil Parsan
The BEG and members of the Clastic Research Group will visit today with the Senator the Honorable Kevin Ramnarine, Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs (MEEA), Trinidad and Tobago
Accompanying the Senator on his visit will be the Ambassador from Trinidad and Tobago to the United States, His Excellency Dr. Neil Parsan, as well as
- Mr. Sheldon Butcher
Senior Chemical Engineer
Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs, - Mr. Marc Rudder
Senior Petroleum Engineer
Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs, and - Mr. Anthony Syms
Governor & Member of the Energy Advisory Committee,
National Energy Skills Centre (NESC).
It is a wonderful opportunity to thank the Minister for their support to the QCL IA's research program and lay plans for continued interaction in the future. Mar 4, 2013
Dolores van der Kolk and Peter Flaig are rocking the Department of Geosciences Colloquium this week at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Go check them out if you are up in Milwaukee. Click image on right to view larger. Mar 4, 2013
Jessica Hudock and Peter Flaig are visiting the Calgary Core Research Facility this week at the invitation and with the funding support of Marathon. They are collaborating with the Marathon team on the study of a large washover fan systems in the McMurray.
Click image on right to view larger. Mar 1, 2013
On February 14th and 15th, the QCL IA consortium held its annual Deep-Water Systems 2013 Meeting at the BEG Houston Research Center. This meeting focused on those components of the research program involving deepwater depositional systems. The first day was dedicated to talks that involved a wide range of studies being done worldwide, including work in the Gulf of Mexico, New Zealand, Brazil and Norway. The second day was dedicated to a deepwater core workshop that included cores from the Wilcox Formation and from DSDP Leg 96 (GOM). The meeting was attended by more than forty company representatives. Technical talks were given by two BEG researchers plus two graduate students who are working on their Ph.D. projects as part of the QCL research program. View the meeding agenda here. Feb 25, 2013
Visit to IODP Core Repository in College Station
On January 23th, QCL researchers Lorena Moscardelli and Peter Flaig visited the IODP Core Repository in College Station to look at some core from the minibasin province of the Gulf of Mexico. Gregory Frebourg who is currently working for the Mudrock Systems Reseach Laboratory (MSRL) and the State of Texas Advanced Oil and Gas Resource Recovery (STARR) project accompanied them to discuss sedimentological aspects associated with deepwater deposits. The objective of the visit was to examine cores that contain Quaternary mass transport deposits and that might also contain contourites. This research line is part of the doctoral work that Maria Prieto is currently conducting and it will be presenting in the upcoming annual meeting. Click on images below to view larger. Jan 25, 2013
Congratulations to Maria Prieto for successfully defending her dissertation proposal to her committee. Jan 23, 2013
Lesli Wood traveled to Jackson, Mississippi, on Thursday, January 10, to give a luncheon talk to the Mississippi Geological Society. Despite the thunderstorms it was the largest crowd they'd had on hand in many months. Jan 16, 2013
Science-based news Website EarthSky recently published their interview with Dr. Lesli Wood. The topic was "Exploring Gulf of Mexico deep water oil." Read the text of the interview here. Jan 14, 2013
