Carbon Sequestration
Subsurface storage of captured anthropogenic CO2, provides a promising technology to decrease the rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Projects address fundamental aspects of understanding the fate of CO2 injected into heterogeneous brine and depleted oil reservoirs, the physical, chemical, and microbial interactions among CO2-ladden brines, minerals, and hydrocarbons, and implementation strategies of CO2 storage in the subsurface. This research motivates investigations of the risks associated with sequestration and the development of cost effective strategies for monitoring for leakage.
Faculty
 | The Breecker Group studies biogeochemical processes occurring at or near the land surface. We study soils and paleosols, caves and stalagmites, and other materials, such as volcanic glass, that give us insight into ancient Earth. We study timescales ranging from seasonal cycles to hundreds of millions of years. We use ...
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 | Computational and exploration geophysics; seismic imaging; wave propagation; seismic data analysis; inverse problems; geophysical estimation
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 | Mineral physics, physics and chemistry of planetary materials, solid-Earth geophysics and geochemistry, high-pressure diamond anvil cell, X-ray and laser spectroscopy
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 | Critical minerals, economic geology, ore deposits, empirical and conceptual exploration targeting, translithospheric mass transfer, ethical and sustainable mining
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 | Ecohydrology, Bio- and Micro-meteorology, Vegetation Hydrodynamics, Watershed Hydrology, Land-Atmosphere Interactions, Biogeochemistry, Water and Carbon Cycles, and Modeling
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 | Seismic wave propagation including anisotropy, geophysical inverse problems, earthquakes and earth structure, applied seismology, petroleum exploration including 4D seismology
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 | climate variability, climate change, paleoclimatology, geochemistry, stable isotopes, organic geochemistry, sedimentology, environmental science
If you are interested in learning more, please visit research website.
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 | Dr. Yang's primary research interest is to understand the exchanges of momentum, radiation, heat, water, carbon dioxide, and other materials between the atmosphere and the Earth surface spanning from small (short) to very large (long) scales. This includes analysis of in-situ and remotely-sensed data for the Earth's surface, and modeling ...
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Lecturers
 | Geochemist - 20 years of stable isotope geochemistry laboratory development (ThermoElectron GasBench, Conflo, MAT252, DeltaXL. 15 years of Gas Chromatography method development and automation (Agilent 6890 GC-MS), sample loop injection development, high temperature and cryogenic chromatography. 8 years of X-ray Fluorescence analysis (Bruker T5 handheld and benchtop units). Expert in a wide ...
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Affiliated Faculty
 | geological modeling, geostatistics, spatial statistics, data analytics, machine learning
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Emeritus
 | Aqueous geochemistry, geomicrobiology, environmental and microbial geochemistry, hydrogeology
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 | Climate, Global Warming, Land Surface Processes, Remote Sensing, Hydrological Cycle, Carbon Cycle, and Modeling.
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 | Geophysics, including gravity, space geodesy, and applied seismology
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Research Scientists
| Petrophysics, Formation Evaluation, Quantitative Seismic Interpretation, Machine Learning, Integrated Subsurface Characterization, Carbon Sequestration
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 | Expertise in geomechanic and geochemistry applied to: risks associated with CO2 sequestration; hydraulic fracturing for shale gas production; environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing; and the water-energy nexus. Current research focuses on the scientific, environmental and public policy aspects of unconventional natural gas production, the water-energy nexus, and carbon capture and ...
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| Source Rock Characterization
Geochemistry (Organic, Biomarker, Gas Isotope)
Mudrock Characterization
Petrography, SEM
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 | Petrography and geochemistry of siliciclastic rocks; diagenesis; electron microbeam methods: X-ray mapping, cathodoluminescence imaging; micro-scale reservoir characterization
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Research Staff
| Program Manager for the Advanced Energy Consortium
Managing multidisciplinary nanosensor, miniaturized electronics, and smart materials research for the assessment of subsurface properties in various applications, including energy exploration, geothermal, CCUS, etc.
https://www.beg.utexas.edu/aec/
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 | 3D geological interpretation and modeling
- Integrated reservoir characterization
- Petroleum Geology
- Petroleum Engineering
- Carbonate sequence stratigraphy
- Conventional and unconventional reservoir exploration and development
- Oil field exploration and production reservoir management
- Petrophysics
- Geostatistics
- Reservoir simulation
- Software development
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 | Personnel management, fiscal reporting, budget management, contract negotiation, management of geological samples
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 | Sequence stratigraphic interpretations (well logs, 3-D seismic), integrated reservoir characterization, subsurface correlation and mapping (using workstation and PC) and subsurface structural interpretation (using 3-D seismic), project management, CO2 sequestration
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