The Earth Surface Science Institute (ESSI) PhD Projects

The Earth Surface Science Institute (ESSI) encompasses the study of past and present environmental and climatic conditions and the processes that produce them. Please have a look at our latest projects listed below and use the links to the right of your screen which give information about the application procedure, fees and scholarships, and other relevant information. If you have already secured sponsorship for your research degree study and have a specific research proposal, we would welcome an application form from you.

Projects with Guaranteed Funding

• NEW Process response to Holocene transgression: an integrated dataset from the Dogger Bank, North Sea Hodgson, D.M. Mountney, N. (University of Leeds), Cotterill, C., Long, D. (British Geological Survey, Edinburgh)

• NEW Mechanisms, distribution, and subsurface implications of clastic dyke and sill emplacement Hodgson, D.M., Peakall, J., (University of Leeds), Faulkner, D.R., Worden, R. (all University of Liverpool), Scott, A. (Statoil)

• FILLED Sedimentology of fluvial channel-to-overbank transitions in low- and high-accommodation settings: an outcrop case study from the Upper Mesa Verde Group, Utah, USA Dr Nigel Mountney
  
  
• Marie Curie ITN Mineral Scale Formation PhDs Professor Liane Benning
  
  

• The making of the modern world: ocean evolution during the last great warm period
  Alan Haywood, Bridget Wade, Vanessa Bowman, Jim Riding (British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, UK) Application deadline of 30 April 2012

• Sulfide Scaling and Inhibitors Prof. Liane G. Benning and Dr. Caroline L. Peacock

• Silica Precipitation under Geothermal Conditions Prof. Liane G. Benning and Dr. Caroline L. Peacock

Projects in competition for the School's NERC Doctoral Training Awards 

The deadline for applications is 5pm on Friday 3 February 2012, and interviews will be held on Monday 27th February, Tuesday 28th February, and Friday 2 March 2012.

Our NERC Doctoral Training Awards are generally awarded to the best candidates following interviews. If you would like to be considered for one of these awards, you should select and rank up to 3 projects from the list below, submit a formal application, and supply all supporting documents before the closing date listed above. You may wish to check whether you are eligible for one of these quota awards.
Alternatively, funding for any of these projects may be sought in the University's scholarship competitions.

• Life in the cold:  survival in and adaptations to an extreme environment
  Liane G. Benning, Martyn Tranter (Bristol)
  
  
• Unusual patterns of diagenesis in offshore sediments of the Yellow River Delta, China
  Simon Bottrell, Rob Mortimer

• How did Antarctic and other southern hemisphere palynofloras respond to the environmental catastrophe at the end of the Cretaceous?
  Vanessa Bowman and Jane Francis,

• The effect of microbial metabolism on radiocarbon behaviour in deep geological nuclear waste repositories
  Ian Burke, Douglas Stewart (Civil Engineering)
  
  
• Transport of gold in the fluvio-glacial environment and implications for regional stream sediment geochemistry and mineral exploration in areas of glaciated terrane
Rob Chapman, Jeff Peakall, Phil Murphy, Mark Cooper & Mark Patton (GSNI)


• FILLED The last forests on Antarctica: Neogene (~12Ma) plant fossils and climates from Antarctica
  Jane Francis, Rob Newton, Vanessa Bowman

• Investigating biogeochemical evidence for chemosymbiosis at fossil cold seeps
  Fiona Gill, Robert Newton and Crispin Little

• Modelling Arctic ice over the last 50 million years
  Daniel Hill and Alan Haywood

• Quicksand mechanics: towards improved hazard mitigation
  Gareth Keevil and Jeff Peakall

• FILLED Investigating the morphology, ultrastructure and palaeontology of polychaete worm tubes from modern and ancient deep sea chemosynthetic environments
  Crispin Little, Dr. Adrian Glover and Dr. Alex Ball (The Natural History Museum, London)
  
  
• The turbidity maximum zone of the Humber: a natural treatment works for nutrient pollution from West Yorkshire
  Dr Robert Mortimer, Dr Robert Newton, Professor Michael Krom, and Professor Dan Parsons (University of Hull)

• Analysis Of Reservoir And Top-Seal Heterogeneity In Permo-Triassic Saline Aquifers To Assess Suitability For Long-Term Co2 Storage
  Nigel Mountney, and Richard Collier

• FILLED The seismic response of heterogeneous rock masses and landslide movement during earthquakes
  William Murphy, Roger Clark
  
  
• Changes in Ocean Oxygenation During the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
  Dr Robert Newton, Dr Simon Poulton (Newcastle University) and Dr Christian März (Newcastle University)

• Using pumping testing to detect permeability anisotropy and presence of faults in the Sherwood Sandstone Aquifer
  Noelle Odling, Jared West, Piroska Lorinczi

• Trace-Element Scavenging by Iron Minerals in Banded Iron Formations: Chemical Records of Early Earth Evolution
  Dr Caroline Peacock, Prof Liane Benning, Dr Sam Shaw and Dr Simon Poulton (Newcastle University)

• Revisiting bedform dynamics in the deep-sea
  Jeff Peakall, Vern Manville, and Dan Parsons (University of Hull)

• Testing times - evolution and extinction events in Cenozoic tropical planktonic foraminifera
  Bridget Wade, Paul Wignall, Tom Dignes (Chevron, Texas, USA) FILLED

• Electrical spectroscopy for investigating subsurface geochemistry and contaminant mobility
  Jared West, Sam Shaw

• The First Mass Extinction: Interrogating the volcano-sedimentary record of the Kalkarindji Flood Basalts, Australia
  Prof. Paul Wignall and Dr Rob Newton (University of Leeds, UK), Dr Mike Widdowson (The Open University, UK), and Dr David Murphy (Queensland University of Technology, Australia)