Research news and awards

Dr Virginia Panizzo from the School of Geography, University of Nottingham, has been appointed as a Visiting Research Associate (VRA) with the British Geological Survey (BGS). Ginnie has recently been appointed as an Anne McLaren Fellow at UoN (from April 2015), and she will be researching into global budgets of silicon cycling, by providing the first estimates of its sources, sinks and fluxes in coastal mangrove systems. Silicon acts as the building blocks for primary algal productivity and, as a result, has a strong control on global carbon cycles and the inventory of CO₂ in the atmosphere. The implications of this research are crucial for the mitigation of future climate change and builds on Ginnie’s previous Si cycling research. Her Fellowship is in conjunction with Dr Matthew Horstwood and Dr Christopher Vane (both BGS), Dr Barry Lomax UoN, Dr Suzanne McGowan (UoN Malaysia Campus) and Prof Rozainah Zakaria and Prof Chong Ving Ching (University of Malaysia).

On 25 March 2014, the British Geological Survey (BGS) in partnership with the ReFINE (Researching Fracking IN Europe) consortium, led by Durham University, published a review of global oil and gas well integrity in the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology. The paper is available for free download at the link below: Oil and gas wells and their integrity: Implications for shale and unconventional resource exploitation.

Dr Rob Ward, Director of Groundwater Science at the BGS, and a co-author of the paper said, ‘This extensive review of published information shows that hydrocarbon well integrity problems are a real issue. Despite this, there has been only one reported incidence of a UK onshore operational hydrocarbon well causing pollution due to well integrity failure, although there is a lack of of information for the many hundreds of other abandoned wells. 

Analysis carried out by the BGS, as part of the study, shows that 45 per cent of the 2152 hydrocarbon wells drilled since 1902 penetrate highly or moderately productive aquifers. These aquifers are important for drinking water supply and supporting flow in rivers and wetlands, and so any leakage from the wells could have significant environmental impact and require costly remediation.

The risks associated with well integrity failure therefore need to be taken very seriously and as a result wells drilled onshore in the future (including those for shale gas) will be subject to strict regulatory controls that require a detailed environmental risk assessment to be carried out, approval of well design by an independent inspector, well integrity testing and effective groundwater monitoring.’

Deep ocean carbonate ion increase during mid Miocene CO₂ decline by Sev Kender.

This paper is the first to constrain mid Miocene ocean carbonate chemistry.

The mid Miocene is important because it is one the the three largest cooling shifts in the Cenozoic, where there was massive ice sheet growth on Antarctica.

Carbonate chemistry of the oceans is important because it is linked to oceanic and atmospheric CO₂ levels.

Our paper shows that the mid Miocene ocean carbonate contents increased, drawing down atmospheric CO₂, which then probably led to cooling and ice sheet growth. We suggest this could have been from increased uplift and erosion of the Himalaya.

Some studies in the past had suggested that CO₂ did not change over this interval, so along with some other recent studies, our paper confirms a link between climate and CO₂.

Under the watchful eye of William Smith, eight of our longest serving geologists with over 300 years of combined service say goodbye to their colleagues on their retirement on 28 February.

Dr Chris Vane, Head of the Organic Geochemistry Group at the BGS, has been made an Honorary Associate Professor within the School of Geography at the University of Nottingham.

Chris has been awarded this honour in recognition of his collaboration with the university in the use organic compounds to solve problems in climate and environmental change, energy and pollution; for example the characterisation of organic matter in conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon systems in order to improve resource estimates and his work around carbon storage in salt marsh and mangrove systems.