School of Earth and Environment
Untitled Document

Jessica Ross Jessica Ross

Postgraduate Student

Telephone number: +44(0) 113 34 35203
Email address: ear4jar@leeds.ac.uk
Room: 7.131 SCR

Qualifications

  • MGeoSci (Geological Sciences) 1st Class (Hons). University of Leeds

Memberships/Fellowships

AAPG (Leeds Student Chapter - Secretary)

IAS

Teaching Interests

SOEE 2062 - Sedimentary Processes

Year 2 - Co. Clare Fieldtrip

Project details

Project title

The dynamics of sand injectites and associated soft sediment deformation structures

Supervisors

Dr Jeff Peakall and Dr Gareth Keevil

Funding

NERC

Start date

1st October 2009

Project outline

Sedimentary structures are one of the basic elements of the sedimentary geologist's toolkit yet there are a raft of structures whose origin remains enigmatic. Despite their ubiquitous use as palaeo-environmental indicators, including recently their use in interpreting whether water was present at or near to the surface of Mars, many of these structures have never been observed or recreated on Earth! Our interpretation is based solely on conceptual ideas with no hard evidence with which to support these process concepts. This project sets out to recreate these sedimentary structures for the first time, and in so doing to understand the processes that form these, and consequently to improve the interpretations that are made from them, on Earth, Mars, or elsewhere.

Within this field, the importance of sand injectites has recently been recognised as a result of their recognition in three-dimensional seismic and in associated outcrop studies. This work has shown that injectites can form huge structures, and that they can have major implications for hydrocarbon reservoirs. Whilst these are one type of structure that has been formed in the laboratory before, there remains very little process understanding of their genesis, development and geometry. Recent pilot work undertaken at Leeds has revealed an array of previously unrecognised processes. These new insights will be systematically investigated in this project, and extended through changing an array of key variables that control the formation of these features.

This project utilises the state-of-the-art facilities provided by the internationally leading and NERC Recognised Sorby Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (SEFDL) at Leeds. In particular, experiments use a specially developed rig for controlling and monitoring the genesis of soft sediment deformation structures. The project will also undertake experiments within the School's CAT scanner, enabling for the very first time real-time examination of the genesis of sedimentary structures throughout the whole sediment volume.

The experimental component of the project is complimented by fieldwork investigating the geometries and spatial variation in grain-size distributions and facies of a range of soft sediment deformation structures. Fieldwork locations include Co. Clare, Ireland and Utah, USA.

Publications

ROSS, J. A., PEAKALL, J. and KEEVIL, G. M. (2011), An integrated model of extrusive sand injectites in cohesionless sediments. Sedimentology. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3091.2011.01230.x

Thomas, R.E., Parsons, D.R., Sandbach, S.D., Keevil, G. M., Marra, W. A., Hardy, R. J., Best, J. L., Lane, S. N., Ross, J. A. (2011), An experimental study of discharge partitioning and flow structure at symmetrical bifurcations. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/esp.2231