Diagenetic modification of carbonate platforms from extensional basins: a step towards predictive models?
Date: Thursday, 21st March 2013
Venue: Cambrian Academy headquarters in Crown Lane, Conwy @ 6:30pm. Refreshments @ 6:00pm.
Abstract:
It is widely acknowledged that diagenetic processes play a fundamental role in determining the volume, shape, size and distribution of porosity on carbonate platforms. However, our ability to predict the shape, size and distribution of diagenetic products is limited. In part this reflects the paucity of integrated, multi-disciplinary, multi-scale outcrop studies that reconstruct the temporal and spatial controls on the processes that controlled diagenetic fluid flux, and hence porosity modification. This presentation will focus upon an ongoing research programme at University of Manchester into the diagenetic modification of carbonate platforms in extensional basins. The studies combine quantitative, multi-scale descriptions of sedimentological, diagenetic, structural and petrophysical features. These data are supplemented by geochemical analyses and interpreted in the context of the tectonostratigraphy and burial history of the basin. Key datasets are taken from the Lower Carboniferous of North Wales and Northern England, and Eocene of the Sinai rift. The diagenetic overprint of these areas will be compared, focusing in particular on dolomitisation, mineralisation and calcite cementation, and the potential to extract rules that better predict porosity distribution will be assessed.
Speaker Biography:
Dr Cathy Hollis is Senior Lecturer in Petrophysics and Petroleum Geocience at University of Manchester, where she leads a team of postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers working on industrially sponsored and research council funded projects in the UK, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Her research focuses primarily on the diagenetic modification of carbonate platforms during burial Cathy received her BSc from University of Birmingham in 1990 and PhD from University of Aberdeen in 1995. She then worked as a consultant carbonate sedimentologist for Badley Ashton and Associates Ltd., during which time she established their Middle East office in the UAE (1999-2001). In 2001, Cathy joined Shell International Exploration and Production in The Netherlands, where she worked for six years conducting both technical service support and research. Between 2005 and 2007, she led the Carbonate Research Team for Shell and was Subject Matter Expert in Carbonate Diagenesis.
Figure 1: Asbian and Brigantian (Dinantian) Limestone, Great Orme, Llandudno, which underwent multiple phases of post-depositional porosity modification, including karstification and meteoric diagenesis, dolomitisation, fault controlled carbonate cementation and mineralisation
Directions to the venue:
RCA, Crown Lane, Conwy, LL32 8AN
