Events
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JSG | BEG | UTIG | EPS |
UTIG Seminar Series: Ben Keisling, UMass - Amherst
Start:November 1, 2019 at 10:30 am
End:
November 1, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Location:
PRC ROC Room 1.603
Contact:
Constantino Panagopulos, costa@ig.utexas.edu, 512-574-7376
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Speaker: Benjamin Keisling, University of Massachusetts – Amherst
Host: Sean Gulick
Title: Using geochemical data to constrain the Pleistocene dynamics of the Greenland Ice Sheet
Abstract: Understanding the behavior of ice sheets during past warm interglacial periods is critical for predictions of sea-level rise in a warming world. Recent measurements of cosmogenic isotopes from beneath the Greenland ice sheet, along its margin, and in marine cores offshore reveal a dynamic history that implies Greenland may be far less stable than has long been assumed. We present ice-sheet modelling simulations motivated by these new observations, and show how numerical models can be used to scale spatially disparate observations and provide physically consistent estimates of Greenland’s contributions to past warm periods. We show results of data-model integration from the Pliocene, the late Pleistocene, and the last deglaciation. These examples illustrate the utility of data-validated ice-sheet models for studying the processes and mechanisms governing collapse of the Greenland ice sheet during warm climates.
DeFord Lecture: Elvira Mulyukova
Start:November 7, 2019 at 3:30 pm
End:
November 7, 2019 at 5:00 pm
Location:
JGB 2.324
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UTIG Seminar Series: Tom Ballinger, Texas State University
Start:November 8, 2019 at 10:30 am
End:
November 8, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Location:
PRC ROC Room 1.603
Contact:
Constantino Panagopulos, costa@ig.utexas.edu, 512-574-7376
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Speaker: Tom Ballinger, Assistant Professor of Geography, Texas State University – San Marcos
Host: Duncan Young
Title: Local cryosphere consequences and large-scale climate implications of the recent shift in North Atlantic atmospheric circulation
Abstract: Arctic sea ice has become younger, thinner, and less extensive over the last four decades. Warm-season open water expansion has especially been pronounced in the North Atlantic Arctic, concomitant with longer melt season duration. However, attributing preconditioning and feedback processes to sea ice melt season changes in this region remains challenging amidst increasing frequency and extremes in high-pressure blocking patterns and regional ocean surface and lower tropospheric air temperature warming since the early 1990s.
This seminar focuses primarily on Baffin Bay ice-atmosphere interactions and related, physical linkages with the Greenland Ice Sheet and boreal mid-latitude weather and climate. Feedback mechanisms involving open water/sea-ice anomalies, persistent blocking patterns, and observed and statistically-downscaled reanalysis surface air temperatures are explored over Greenland coastal and tundra areas. A hypothesis is also tested that longer periods of open water on Baffin Bay coupled with local meteorological conditions influence late-season melt events observed on the western Greenland Ice Sheet. Lastly, sea ice anomalies are linked to overlying polar jet stream patterns and south and downstream weather conditions over North America and Europe, providing further evidence that the changing Arctic, especially within the North Atlantic sector, has an impact on human and natural systems at great distances.
DeFord Lecture: Noel Bartlow
Start:November 12, 2019 at 3:30 pm
End:
November 12, 2019 at 5:00 pm
Location:
JGB 2.324
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DeFord Lecture: Daniel Trugman
Start:November 14, 2019 at 3:30 pm
End:
November 14, 2019 at 5:00 pm
Location:
JGB 2.324
UTIG Seminar Series: Jeff Freymueller, Michigan State University
Start:November 15, 2019 at 10:30 am
End:
November 15, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Location:
PRC ROC Room 1.603
Contact:
Constantino Panagopulos, costa@ig.utexas.edu, 512-574-7376
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Host: Gail Christensen
Title: Separating Long-term Tectonic Motions, Surface Loading and Other Sources of Earth Deformation
Abstract: Plate tectonics is driven by forces internal to the solid Earth, and measuring tectonic motions has been a fruitful focus for geodesy for the last few decades. However, geodetic observations depend not only on long-term tectonic motions, but also on elastic and viscoelastic effects of locked faults and the earthquake cycle. In addition, motions that ultimately result from surface loading (including glacial isostatic adjustment, GIA) also contribute to the measurements, both directly and in subtle indirect ways. As our field moves increasingly to the study of smaller amplitude steady motions and transient, time-dependent fault deformation, identifying these non-tectonic contributions becomes increasingly important. In this talk, I will take a tour around the North American continent to illustrate how these sources of Earth deformation can be separated, and how the continental-scale impact of GIA impacts estimates our estimates of tectonics.
DeFord Lecture: Brandon Schmandt
Start:November 19, 2019 at 3:30 pm
End:
November 19, 2019 at 5:00 pm
Location:
JGB 2.324
UTIG Special Seminar: Dan McConnell, Fugro
Start:November 20, 2019 at 5:30 pm
End:
November 20, 2019 at 7:00 pm
Location:
RLP 1.106
Contact:
Constantino Panagopulos, costa@ig.utexas.edu, 512-574-7376
Speaker: Dan McConnell, Fugro
Host: Peter Flemings
The talk will be held at Patton Hall, RLP 1.106, on main campus at The University of Texas at Austin.
Title: Large biogenic gas deposits and the role of gas hydrates
Quantifying Gas Hydrate Deposits and Implications for Petroleum Systems and Secondary Target and Seal Assessment in large Biogenic Gas Plays
Abstract: Some of the most promising gas hydrate targets are associated with strong biogenic gas systems such as in New Zealand, Myanmar, and Colombia, where gas hydrates are in close proximity to, and may seal potential secondary commercial drilling targets.
The association of high saturation gas hydrate prospects and strong biogenic gas systems should not be surprising. Large gas hydrate deposits, except along thin chimneys, tend to not be distributed broadly from the base of the gas hydrate stability zone to the seafloor, they tend to accumulate at the base of gas hydrate stability if there is porous and permeable reservoir.
Gas hydrates are commonly seen where there are large biogenic gas systems such as deepwater Gulf of Mexico, Colombia, Trinidad & Tobago, Israel, East coast of India, Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. Conventional (produced by conventional means) biogenic gas systems are young systems. With the right conditions, economic accumulations of biogenic gas may form in less than 100,000 years Provided that the sediments have sufficient organic matter, temperature is then the principle control on methane generation. What is generated and can accumulate in biogenic gas reservoir sediments is gas production by mesophile bacteria within a temperature window between 13° and 50° C with peak generation between 35° and 45°C.
The discovery curve for deepwater conventional biogenic gas reserves has accelerated over the last 20 years with approximately 100 Tcf of gas reserves developed in that time (MacGregor, 2018). Gas hydrates appear, in some local settings, to help concentrate conventional biogenic gas deposits. “Hoteling” of biogenic gas as gas hydrate has been discussed as a free gas concentration mechanism at Camden Hills in Mississippi Canyon 348 in the Gulf of Mexico and at the multi-Tcf Shwe gas field offshore Myanmar.
Gas hydrates are also unstable and are subject to stripping from any undersaturated fluids passing by a gas hydrate deposit. High saturation gas hydrates that are found at the base of gas hydrate stability tend to form from an active and vigorous biogenic gas expulsion from the basin.
If conventional gas deposits were trapped first as gas hydrate, it implies that the gas hydrates had local lithologic seals and that the seal was key to preservation of the gas as the gas and seal were buried.
The presence of gas hydrates in conventional biogenic gas plays indicates that there is an active flux of methane through the near seafloor sediments and can inform potential gas targets that are proximal to the gas hydrate system.
Quantifying gas hydrate deposits can be done by modification of exploration methods for conventional oil and gas. These techniques, plus other seismic thin bed responses that can be isolated with seismic attributes such as envelope derivatives, can be used to quantify gas hydrate presence, thickness, and saturations.
DeFord Lecture: Sunyoung Park
Start:November 21, 2019 at 3:30 pm
End:
November 21, 2019 at 5:00 pm
Location:
JGB 2.324
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UTIG Seminar Series: John Snedden and Zach Sickmann, UTIG
Start:November 22, 2019 at 10:30 am
End:
November 22, 2019 at 12:00 pm
Location:
PRC ROC Room 1.603
Contact:
Constantino Panagopulos, costa@ig.utexas.edu, 512-574-7376
View Event
Speakers: John Snedden and Zach Sickmann, UTIG
Host: Mrinal Sen
Title: Supercritical deepwater bedform development in an “active tectonic margin”, southern Gulf of Mexico
Abstract: In the early 1970’s, as part of its expeditionary science mission, Richard Buffler and other UTIG scientists acquired multi-channel 2D seismic reflection data over the Mexican Ridges in the southern Gulf of Mexico. This was among the first data collected over this tectonically active margin, illuminating the presence of a deep-water fold and thrust belt system known as the Mexican Ridges. Further investigation of the Mexican Ridges, using both the reprocessed UTIG data (marketed as YucatanSPAN) and newly acquired industry depth-imaged 2D seismic data has also revealed the presence of large-scale deepwater bedforms covering a minimum area of 13000 km2 (Upper Miocene) to 19,600 km2 (Lower Pliocene) within and east of the Mexican Ridges. Depth-imaged seismic shows observed subsurface bedform amplitudes average 20- 30 m, with mean wavelengths of 1-2 km, and are largely asymmetric features, transitioning to symmetrical wavy bedforms in the Upper Pliocene to Pleistocene.
Our work on these enigmatic features has proceeded along two avenues: 1) investigating potential depositional processes that formed these deepwater bedforms and; 2) exploring the larger-scale, regional tectonostratigraphic controls that generated the Mexican Ridges and the syn-kinematic bedforms. We make extensive use of available well data for calibration of industry seismic data including both DSDP sites and industry wells drilled in this petroleum-rich basin.
We conclude that these bedforms represent deposition by supercritical turbidity flows, routing fine-sediment loads from western and southwest source terranes. Expansive bedform development can be temporally linked to the kinematic evolution of the Mexican Ridges fold and thrust belt in response to the structural history of the Pacific Plate margin and adjacent Trans-Mexican Volcanic belt. We posit that bedform generation is a direct result of increased sediment flux and enhanced slope elevation developed during this important phase of basin history in Mexico.
Biography: John W. Snedden is a senior research scientist at the Institute for Geophysics, the University of Texas at Austin. He directs the Gulf Basin Depositional Synthesis project, an industry research consortium investigating the depositional history of the Gulf of Mexico. He worked in the oil industry for more than 25 years. Along with William E. Galloway, he recently published the book, The Gulf of Mexico Sedimentary Basin: Depositional Evolution and Petroleum Applications, (Cambridge University Press, November 2019).
Biography: Zach T. Sickmann is the Richard T. Buffler postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Geophysics, at the University of Texas at Austin. He works on the sediment dispersal patterns of active margin basins. He recently received his PhD from Stanford University and was a postdoc and lecturer in the Department of Geological Sciences in the Jackson School at UT before joining UTIG in the summer of 2019.
UTIG Seminar Series: Cornelia Rasmussen, UTIGApril, 26 2024Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AMLocation: PRC 196/ROC 1.603 Speaker: Cornelia Rasmussen, Research Associate, University of Texas Institute for Geophysics Host: Krista Soderlund Title: The Emerging Field Of Position-Specific Isotope Analysis: Applications in chemical forensics, exobiology, geo- and environmental sciences Abstract: Complex organics can be found all over our solar system and within each living thing on our planet, be it as part of its physiology or as a contaminant. However, different processes can lead to the formation of chemical identical molecules. This makes answering a number of scientific questions challenging. One example is distinguishing between biotic and abiotic molecules, hence hindering life detection on early Earth but especially on other planetary bodies, such as on Mars, Titan, Enceladus and on meteorites where organics have been detected. Moreover, tracing molecules as they move through the environment can be demanding, yet is essential in studying the flow of organic molecules as well as correlating pollutants with their source. Novel tools to address these challenges are currently being developed. Especially, the emerging field of position-specific isotope analysis is beginning to grant access to the unique intramolecular carbon (13C/12C) isotope fingerprint preserved in complex molecules. This fingerprint can be applied in various scientific disciplines, ranging from forensics to exobiology, geo- and environmental sciences, including geo health. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) has the potential to become a key player in this research area, as it allows the analysis of organics within complex mixtures, all without the need to fragment the molecule into single carbon units or the combustion of the molecule of interest. We have been developing several NMR tools that allow us to investigate the intramolecular carbon isotope distribution within various molecule classes and to test the central hypothesis that the position-specific carbon isotope distribution within complex organics depends on a molecule’s source and formation history. |
Planetary Habitability Seminar SeriesApril, 29 2024Time: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PMLocation: PMA 15.216B UT Center for Planetary Systems Habitability Seminar Series. See website for speaker schedule and more details: View Events Join remotely: https://utexas.zoom.us/j/94052130734 In person: Classroom 15.216B, Physics, Math and Astronomy Bldg. UT Austin, Department of Astronomy 2515 Speedway, Stop C1400 Austin, Texas 78712-1205 |
UTIG Discussion Hour: Kristian Chan - PhD Talk (UTIG)April, 30 2024Time: 2:00 PM - 3:00 PMLocation: ROC 2.201 |