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On Wednesday December 11th we will hold our Christmas social, with a talk by Rob Marsden on “Valuation of mining projects and the role of geological resource uncertainty”. The venue (upstairs at the RCA, Conwy) will be open from 18:00 for mince pies and seasonal cheer. The talk will commence when everyone is ready. We’re looking forward to welcoming you for an evening of convivial chat and a stimulating talk.
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Professor Mark Macklin will present ‘From the Industrial Revolution to the ‘green’ energy transition: impacts of metal mining on global river systems’, a talk which will consider legacy mining issues both in Wales and worldwide. The RCA will be open from 18:00 for refreshments and the talk will commence at 18:30.
Professor Macklin is Distinguished Professor of River Systems and Global Change, Director of the Lincoln Centre for Water and Planetary Health, Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Lincoln.
Talk abstract:
The global transition to renewable energy and pursuit of net zero carbon dioxide emissions is driving substantial demand for a wide range of energy transition metals and minerals. This in turn is projected to increase mine waste generation, for metals used in batteries (Cu, Li, Mn, and Ni), which could generate up to 2 trillion tonnes of tailings and waste rock between 2020 and 2050. This places greater pressure on land and other natural resources, notably water at the source of extraction, as well as significantly increasing the risk of river pollution and its impact on ecosystem and human health. In this talk, these issues are discussed from both a local (Welsh) and global perspective, including the continued and growing impacts of the remobilization of mining waste stored in river channels and floodplain downstream from disused mines, which is happening more frequently as the result of increased flooding caused by climate change. A new process-based mapping and modelling tool is outlined that will enable the mining industry, government, regulators, and local authority to assess the environmental and health risk posed by past and present mining activities in river systems, as well as providing management options.
Ricki Walker will preview his presentation to GEO4.0: “Automated pore-size distribution and characterisation from whole thin section image mosaics”.
We are pleased to announce the start of our autumn programme, with a talk on Thursday 19th September by Bob Eden of Rawwater, “Bugs Everywhere: a story behind biological oilfield reservoir souring and the peculiar subject of bacterial sulphide production”. Bob says “We’ve all either fallen into ponds as kids or discovered the post-wading black mud stink on our wellies, though probably didn’t think about bugs at the time. This talk will take us from the foul-smelling childhood discovery to the multibillion-dollar cost of offshore sour gas management: oilfield reservoir souring.”
Bob Eden is a humourist, technology entrepreneur and honorary professor at the University of Manchester. He is also a biologist and corrosion engineer, which ushered him into the world of oilfield souring in the mid-1980s when “biology could never have caused souring”. Bob now owns a pub in north Cheshire.
On Thursday 21st March at 18:30 upstairs in the RCA, Conwy, Dr. Gloria Arancibia will give a talk entitled:
“Fluid flow in fractured geothermal systems: an example from the Andean Southern Volcanic Zone”
and Dr. Diego Morata will give a talk entitled
Talk title: “Geothermal development in Chile: a century of exploration ending in the first South America power plant”
The venue will be open from 18:00 for pre-talk drinks and socialising.
Dr. Gloria Arancibia is a full professor at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile and an academic visitor at the University of Liverpool. She has over 25 years of experience on Rock Deformation topics and Fault zones in the Andes. Her main research topics relate to controlling structural and tectonic processes on crustal fluid circulation. She has published +50 indexed Web of Science papers and participated in more than 25 research projects granted by international and national public agencies. The results of her research group have been presented at more than 140 international conferences. After several years as a mining consultant, she entered the Academy in the Engineering School at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile when the percentage of women was close to 5%. In 2022, She was the first female academic to be promoted to the full-professor category in the 135 years since the founding of the Engineering School. Currently, she is a role model in her country for female promotion in science to break barriers to access to the STEM disciplines.
Dr. Diego Morata is a full professor at the Department of Geology in the Universidad de Chile. His man research activities are related with the petrogenesis of magmatic rocks in subduction zones and hydrothermal (very low- to low-T) alteration processes. From 2010 he is the Director of the Andean Geothermal Center of Excellence (CEGA), hosted at the Universidad de Chile. He has a robust and huge experience in Andean geothermal systems, both for high-T as for direct use. He is the responsible of different direct use pilot projects along the country aimed to show the benefits of geothermal energy in Chile and rest of the Andean countries. He is author or co-author of +150 WoS papers, 36 non-ISI papers and more than 200 congress presentations. During his academic career he was responsible or co-investigator of +40 national or international research projects. From 2013 to present he is member of the Editorial Board in the journal Geothermal Energy and he was member of the Board of Directors, International Geothermal Association (IGA, 2016-2020). From August 2023 to July 2024 he is a visitor professor at the University of Liverpool.
We are pleased to start 2024 with a talk from Prof. Michael Stephenson on “Palynology of the Hercynian unconformity across the Arabian plate, from the Levant to southern Arabia”. As usual, the meeting will be upstairs at the RCA Conwy, LL32 8AN, with doors opening for refreshments at 18:00 and the talk scheduled to start at 18:30. All are welcome but please let us know (e-mail admin@geoscience.wales) if you plan to attend, so we may cater accordingly.
Abstract
The areal extent of the Hercynian unconformity and the hiatus it represents are important economically because typical Arabian source and reservoir rocks are often not present because of erosion (or non-deposition) related to the unconformity. Rocks affected by this include the Berwath, Jubah, and Jauf formations in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states; and the Misfar Group and Haima Supergroup in Oman. The unconformity therefore affects access to geological formations that could hold oil and gas, or could be suitable for CCS targets, for geothermal, or for heat and cool storage.
This survey of the palynostratigraphy of the HU indicates that the range of its associated hiatus, due to either non-deposition or erosion (or both), varies considerably across the Arabian Plate depending on the position of the sequence in relation to the three main highs or arches, and any Hercynian faulting or other uplift in basinal region, for example in the Ghawar region. As expected, the succession spanning the HU is most complete in basinal areas, for example in the Nafud-Ma’aniya Basin where a very short temporal hiatus of maximum duration of approximately Serpukhovian to Bashkirian, occurs in well KH-5/1 close to the axis of the Basin. The variability of the effects of Hercynian movements may be a consequence simply of distance from Hercynian activity, or of depths within the basin that meant that uplift was not large enough to lead to either erosion or non-deposition.
Palynological assemblages in rocks above above the HU indicate the diachronous onset of the basal Khuff clastics northwest through the Arabian Plate over a period of around 15 my, from the early Wordian (base ~269 My) in Oman in the south of the Arabian Plate to the Changhsingian (base ~254 My) in Jordan in the north of the Arabian Plate. The oldest strata above the HU across the Arabian Plate also indicate systematic variation, probably due to palaeoclimate with assemblages of probably similar age in Iraq and northern Saudi Arabia showing some similarities to those of Oman, the differences probably being due to a strong climatic gradient at the time. Those below the unconformity are shown to vary considerably across the Arabian Plate depending on the position of the sequence in relation to the three main highs or arches, and any Hercynian faulting or other uplift in basinal regions, for example in the Ghawar region.
This talk contains only information in the public domain.
Abstract:
The Ordovician Period was one of the most important in the history of life on our planet. But the system remained obscured by the conflict between Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison, hidden within the Silurian until the early years of the 20th Century. Key to its recognition were the Ordovician rocks of the Southern Upland of Scotland and the strata around Bala Lake in North Wales. I will review its turbulent early history and outline the importance of the period for the diversification of marine life, the early colonization of the land and the establishment of more modern climates.
The speaker:
David Harper is a leading international expert on palaeontology and the fossil record. He was formerly Professor in Palaeontology and a head of department in the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen. He is now Emeritus Professor and a former Principal of Van Mildert College at Durham University. Harper was President of the International Palaeontological Association and the Palaeontological Association and is currently Chair of the International Commission for Stratigraphy. His research has addressed some of the most fundamental developments in the history of life, for example the Cambrian Explosion, Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event and the End Ordovician mass extinction. These events occurred over 440 million years ago, yet their impact had profound consequences for the evolution of the modern marine realm. His research has been recognised by foreign memberships of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, the Royal Swedish Physiographic Society and an Einstein Professorship in the Chinese Academy of Sciences together with two honorary doctorates and the Jean Baptiste Lamarck Medal from the European Geosciences Union.
Logistics:
The talk will commence at 18:30. The venue (upstairs at the Royal Cambrian Academy, behind Plas Mawr, Conwy, LL32 8AN) will be open from 18:00 for seasonal drinks and snacks.
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