Scientific Webinars

Sediments have long been a source of invaluable information about the Earth’s life history. The advent of ancient sedimentary DNA has opened a new window into this history. New opportunities include tracking the distribution of specific species across time and space and reconstructing entire ecosystems dating back as far as 2 million years. Today, the field is on the cusp of taking another transformative step in studying the past —tracking evolutionary processes of a broad spectrum of organisms, from viruses and bacteria to higher plants and animals. Achieving this breakthrough depends on developing novel wet lab and computational methods. Sedimentary microfossils lie at the centre of these efforts. Diverse, abundant, and well-preserved in various depositional environments worldwide, microfossils originate from organisms across the tree of life. As such, microfossils hold the potential to provide an unprecedentedly detailed study of evolutionary histories from sediments. However, this potential comes with challenges, including the complexities of isolating microfossils from sediments at scale and efficiently retrieving their DNA. This talk will introduce the exciting opportunities and practical challenges of working with microfossil DNA, with pollen as a case study, and provide an overview of the methodological developments underway.

Over the last three years, I have made more than 500 visits to a new dam project, located 15 km west of Calgary. New findings resulting from fieldwork on terrestrial deposits of the uppermost Cretaceous include a marine incursion, two new regional lowstand events, a new structural interpretation supported by some stunning drone data, and fossils ranging from dinosaurs to invertebrates to a new family of fossil plants. All this plus a bed of giant oncoids flagging up the K/Pg boundary, with everything underpinned by classic sedimentology. The project showcases Alberta’s Historical Resources Act in action on a major construction project.

The authigenic ¹⁰Be/⁹Be dating method holds significant potential due to its ability to determine depositional ages from just a few grams of mud, spanning up to 14 million years. However, the factors influencing this method are not yet fully understood. Its complexity arises from the distinct origins of the isotopes: radioactive ¹⁰Be is produced by cosmic rays in the atmosphere, while stable ⁹Be originates from the weathering of rocks. Both nuclides are incorporated into oxyhydroxides that form authigenic rims around sedimentary particles, which are subsequently extracted for dating.
Our research builds on key studies, primarily with independent age constraints, to investigate how depositional processes, changes in base level, sediment source proximity, and drainage network dynamics influence the fluxes of ⁹Be and ¹⁰Be in epicontinental basin environments. This study represents the first comprehensive effort to establish criteria for the effective application of the authigenic ¹⁰Be/⁹Be dating method.

This talk is a clastics-framed window into the main Karoo Basin during the Carnian Pluvial Event, exploring its environmental impact and associated biotic changes. It will emphasize the importance of field sedimentology in investigating footprint- and plant-bearing strata and in decoding the climatic and ecological upheavals at the dawn of the dinosaurs in the Late Triassic.

The Taiwan Strait, a dynamic shallow-marine environment influenced by strong ocean currents, provides an ideal natural laboratory to investigate the processes and products of ocean-current dominated straits. This study aims to elucidate the complex interplay between hydrodynamic forcing (tides, waves and large-scale ocean circulation), sediment supply, and sea-level changes that shape the evolution of muddy depositional systems in the Strait. By integrating high-resolution seismic data, sediment cores, and hydrodynamic analysis, this study will provide new insights into the formation and evolution of muddy depositional systems in shallow-water straits. Taiwan Strait serves as a starting point for developing a facies model for ocean-current-dominated straits.

Offshore wind farms are currently planned or built at scale on many continental shelves around the globe and it is predicted that ~380 GW of new offshore wind capacity is going to be added in the next 10 years (four times the current capacity). With offshore wind farm (OWF) sites getting larger (some > 900km2), deeper and further offshore and with more plans for floating turbines deployment, the challenge is not small, and geoscience is posed to play one of the key roles in it.

In the first part of this this lecture we will introduce the process of ground modelling for offshore wind developments including the turbine array but also subsea cables and landfalls. We will also discuss similarities and differences in workflows, data requirements and specific geoscience expertise between offshore wind and oil and gas sectors. And the differences between fixed and floating wind developments.

The second part of this lecture will focus on case studies showcasing the technical aspects and geoscientific challenges of ground modelling and geohazard assessment. In particular we will (1) discuss development of ground model (GM)and quantifying GM uncertainty across a former ice marginal setting using ultra-high resolution seismic (UHRS) data in the Baltic Sea, (2) look at how understanding of crustal scale isostatic movements and relative sea level changes can help with Cable Burial Risk Assessment in Canada and Scotland with a particular focus on submerged organic-rich muds and peats, (3) touch on sediment mobility and submarine geomorphology aspect of offshore wind development and (4) show how seismic geomorphology approach using 3D HR seismic data and process-based seismic interpretation can help with identifying engineering ground units and geohazards accelerating the GM process. This is relevant for all offshore wind sites but here it will be discussed in the context of formerly glaciated Northern Hemisphere continental shelves where the shallow subsurface (here defined as first ~200m below seabed) was affected by multiple phases of ice sheet advance and retreat during the Pleistocene, leaving a complex mosaic of glaciogenic sediments, glaciotectonic deformation, evidence for periglacial alteration of sediments, all that interbedded with terrestrial and marine sediments deposited in non-glacial settings.

1. Annelotte Weert, University of Naples ‘Federico Il’, The geothermal sedimentary system of the West Netherlands Basin

2. Zidan Benabdelkrim, University of Lorraine, Multi-Scale Characterization of Geothermal Reservoir Analogs in Ooidal Carbonate Platform Borders (Middle Jurassic, Charentes): Sedimentary, Stratigraphic, and Paleoenvironmental Records from Sample to 3D Model

3. Rioko Moscardini, University College Dublin, Heterogeneity in the Triassic Sherwood Sandstone Reservoir in Northern Ireland: A case study in the Larne Basin

4. Maria Isabel Vidal Reyes, University of Trieste, Geological-Geothermal characterisation of the Alps-Apennines tectonic limit: insights from the Tertiary Piedmont Basin (NW Italy).