Marc is a computational geoscientists interested in multi-phase geosystems and geophysical porous media. Marc has an BSc in Geology from the University of Edinburg, a MS in Oceanography from the MIT-WHOI Joint Program, a MPhil in Fluid Flow from Cambridge University, and a PhD in Petroleum Engineering from Stanford University. He was a postdoctoral researcher in tectonophysics at Brown University.

Areas of Expertise

Multiphase flow in porous media, geomechanics, numerical simulation, mathematical, modeling, reactive transport, magma dynamics.


Research Locations



Current Research Programs & Projects

CMG Research: Robust Numerical Methods for Multi-Phase Darcy-Stokes Flow in Heterogeneous and Anisotropic Partially Molten Materials

ACS-DNI: The interpretation of geochemical patterns through the theory of hyperbolic conservation laws for reactive transport in porous media


Shell Companies Foundation Centennial Chair in Geophysics - University of Texas at Austin (2012 - 2012)

John A. and Katherine G. Jackson Centennial Teaching Fellowship in Geological Sciences - Jackson School of Geosciences (2011 - 2011)

David Crighton Fellowship - Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics - University of Cambridge (2009)

European Trust Bursary & EPSRC Studentship - University of Cambridge (2002 - 2003)

Presidential Graduate Fellowship - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2000 - 2002)

Edinburgh Geological Society Prize - University of Edinburgh (2000)

Mineralogical Society Student Award - Mineralogical Society (1999)

Total Oil Marine Prize - University of Edinburgh (1999)

Member, Conference organizing committee, Gordon Research Conference Flow and Transport in Permeable Media (2010)

Chair, Conference organizing committees, Gordon-Keenan Graduate Research Seminar: Flow and Transport in Permeable Media (2010)

Co-chair, Session, American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2009: V41: Geochemical consequences of melt migration (2009)

Mini-symposia organizer, Mini-symposia, SIAM Mathematical and Computational Geosciences: MS53 & 60: Geological CO2 Storage (2009)

Mini-symposia organizer, Mini-symposia, SIAM Mathematical and Computational Geosciences: S38: Dynamics of partially molten rocks (2009)

Member, Conference organizing committee, Gordon Research Conference: Flow and Transport in Permeable Media (2008)

Mini-symposia organizer, Mini-symposia, SIAM Mathematical and Computational Geosciences: MS43: Self-similar solutions in porous media flow (2007)

Graduate Students

Colin J McNeece

Nicolas J Huerta

Kyung Won Chang, Ph.D., expected 2013
Kyung Won aims to understand the dynamics of multiphase flow in geological porous media. He started his academic career with engineering minds, a BS in geotechnical engineering and a MS in petroleum engineering. He is continuing his ph.D in geological sciences. Kyung Won believes that his multidiscipline background will allow him be a smart bridge between geo-engineers and geo-scientists.

Kiran J Sathaye, Ph.D., expected 2016
I am a PhD candidate studying the Bravo Dome carbon dioxide reservoir near the Texas-Oklahoma-New Mexico border. My work involves incorporation of stable and radioactive isotope geochemistry, reservoir engineering and multiphase flow, and petrophysics and geostatistics. I am interested in incorporation of data and models from these varying disciplines to better understand subsurface fluid flow.

Jacob S Jordan, Ph.D., expected 2017

Abraham Taicher, Computation and Applied Mathematics

Soheil Ghanbarzadeh, Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering-Replaces PEN


The hyperbolic structure of reaction fronts in porous media, [HPC]^3 Workshop, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia (2012)

Fluid- and geomechanical aspects of geological CO2 storage, Department of Energy Resources Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford University (2012)

Hyperbolic theory for heterovalent ion-exchange, International Conference for Computational Methods in Water Resources, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2012)

Assimilation of surface displacement data into reservoir models for improved characterization and monitoring of geological carbon dioxide storage site, European Fluid Mechanics Conference 9, University of Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy (2012)

Reactive transport in porous media with pH-dependent sorption, Department of Petroleum Engineering, University of Tulsa, Tulsa (2012)

The Effect of Capillary Forces on Two-phase Flow, SIAM Conference on Mathematical & Computational Issues in the Geosciences, Long Beach, CA (2011)

Monitoring pressure evolution during geological CO2 storage, American Physical Society - Division of Fluid Dynamics, Annual meeting, Baltimore (2011)

Fluid dynamical, geochemical and geomechanical aspects of geological CO2 storage, Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland (2011)

Magma dynamics in a viscously deforming porous media, Universitaet Stuttgart, Institut fuer Wasserbau, Stuttgart, Germany (2011)

Fill and Spill: The buoyant dispersal of CO2 during geological storage, XVIII Conference on Computational Methods in Water Resources (CMWR 2010), Barcelona, Spain (2010)

Trapping mechanisms during geological CO2 storage, University of Cambridge, BP-Institute for Multiphase Flow, Coambridge, UK (2010)

Compaction-dissolution waves in magma dynamics, SIAM Nonlinear Waves and Coherent Structures, Philadelphia (2010)

Dynamics of Geological CO2 Storage, Rice University, Department of Earth Science, Houston, USA (2010)

Trapping Processes During CO2 Storage in Saline Aquifers, Penn State, Department of Geosciences, State College (2008)

Length & Time Scales of Trapping Processes in Saline Aquifer Storage of CO2, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Department of Marine Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole, MA (2008)

The Ultimate Fate of CO2 in Saline Aquifers, Massachussetts Institute of Technology, Carbon Sequestration Forum, Boston, MA (2007)

GEO 346C Introduction to physical and chemical hydrogeology (Undergraduate)

GEO 391 Reactive transport in porous media (Graduate)

GEO 391 Continuum Mechanics (Graduate)

GEO 391 Essentials of flow in porous media (Graduate)

Magma dynamics of monogenetic vents (Graduate - Start Fall 2013)
We are looking for a PhD student interested in modeling the compositional variations observed in the lavas of monogenetic vents. These short lived magmatic systems are thought to arise from a single pulse of melt formed from a chemical heterogeneity in the Earth's mantle. The importance of chemical heterogeneities for the melting processes in planetary interiors has only recently been recognized and the monogenetic vents provide unique constraints on the role of mantle heterogeneities in mantle melting.

The student will be part of an interdisciplinary team comprising Profs. Lassiter and Barnes and their students. Lassiter and Barnes will provide a detailed geochemical characterization of the temporal variations in monogenetic vent lavas and our group will develop numerical models for the geochemical evolution of an isolated pulse of melt rising through the mantle. Comparison between model results and observations will then provide constraints on the depth of melting and the size of the heterogeneity that gave rise to it.

Interested applicants can learn more about our previous work in this area from these papers:

Liang, Schiemenz, Hesse & Parmentier (2011) Waves, channels, and the preservation of chemical heterogeneities during melt migration in the mantle, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L20308, doi:10.1029/2011GL049034

Hesse, Schiemenz, Liang & Parmentier (2011) Compaction-dissolution waves in viscously deforming porous media, Geophys. J. Int., 187(3), 1057-1075, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-246X.2011.05177.x

 

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