The fall semester is in full swing and the Sedimentary Systems Research group is busy with research and teaching. Refer to the Research page for general descriptions of the ongoing projects that are discussed below.

M.S. candidate Patrick Boyle is starting the second year of his master’s after a valuable industry internship experience in Houston this summer. Pat’s thesis research is focused on reconstructing the Cenozoic history of deep-sea sedimentation on the Newfoundland Ridge with an emphasis on the response of the abyssal Deep Western Boundary Current to past climate change. Pat is mapping the distribution of contourite ‘drift’ deposits using seismic-reflection data tied to chronological and lithological information from IODP Exp 342 cores. Pat will be presenting a poster about this work at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco in December.

Ph.D. candidate Neal Auchter had a productive summer working on various components of his research. Neal’s work encompasses multiple scales. At the finer scale, Neal is interested in the stratigraphic record of submarine channel systems, especially the architecture that is produced as a result of channel migration. He is also investigating larger-scale, longer-term basin-filling patterns and history. Neal spent a lot of time this summer characterizing and interpreting outcrop data that was collected in February-March in Patagonia. He also completed a small pilot study to test the utility of strontium isotope stratigraphy with the limited carbonate material in the Magallanes Basin, which informs the design of a sampling campaign for the upcoming field season.

Ph.D. candidate Cody Mason is very busy processing and analyzing samples for a thermochronologic study he is doing with Virginia Tech faculty Jim Spotila (active tectonics, geomorphology). Cody will present some preliminary results of this work at AGU in December. Cody is also planning for a second field work excursion to Panamint Valley in California in October. This project aims to examine the role sediment flux (calculated from cosmogenic radionuclide-derived paleodenudation rates) has on stratigraphic architecture. This next field season will focus on creating a detailed stratigraphic framework with a combination of measured sections, facies analysis, and high-resolution mapping of the stratigraphic architecture. This framework will then be used to design the cosmogenic nuclide sampling plan. Neal will be heading out there with Cody to assist.

Undergraduate researcher Sarah Ault spent a good deal of the summer helping me test and establish sample preparation procedures for grain-size analysis of terrigenous deep-sea sediment. There was a lot of trial and error and a series of minor issues with laboratory equipment, but we now have a robust set of procedures and are now at full throughput. Data is being generated! Sarah is examining the controls on distinct cycles in these sediments that alternate from clay-rich to carbonate-rich beds at the 10s of cm scale. She will be using terrigenous grain-size analysis to test the hypothesis that the carbonate production was ‘diluted’ by varying influx of terrigenous material.

A new undergraduate researcher, Chris Matthews, started working in the lab last month. In addition to helping me analyze samples for longer-term research goals, he will be testing a widely used contourite facies model with quantitative grain-size data.

I’m very busy teaching this fall. I’m teaching the undergraduate Sed-Strat course for our geoscience majors (Pat and Neal are TAing this course), running the Seismic Stratigraphy course for the second time, and leading a grad seminar on sedimentary basins. Busy! And, as always, I’m working on a few manuscripts and proposals in between all of the teaching and mentoring.

Finally, we didn’t have any new graduate students join the group this fall, but I will be bringing in at least one, possibly two, grad students to start in August 2014. The deadline for applying is in January and I’ve already been corresponding with several prospective students. Please contact me if you’re interested in learning more.

I am looking for a new graduate student to join the Sedimentary Systems Research group at Virginia Tech. This student would start in August 2014 (applications due January 2014).

The research project will investigate the flow history of the Deep Western Boundary Current in the North Atlantic Ocean in response to significant past global climate change (specifically, at the Eocene-Oligocene and Oligocene-Miocene transitions). Flow history of this long-lived and globally important oceanic current will be reconstructed primarily from quantitative grain-size analysis of sediment cores from deep-sea ‘drift’ deposits of the Newfoundland Ridge. These data will be generated in laboratory facilities at Virginia Tech.

This project is associated with the broader scientific goals of Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 342, which I sailed on as a participating scientist in summer 2012. More information about Expedition 342 here: http://publications.iodp.org/preliminary_report/342/342pr_5.htm

The scope of the research could be designed for either M.S. or Ph.D. level. For those students seeking a Ph.D. I’d like to hear ideas from the prospective student regarding the design of the project.

General information about the graduate program in the Dept. of Geosciences at Virginia Tech: http://www.geos.vt.edu/prospectivestudents/graduate.php

Learn more about VT Sedimentary Systems Research group: http://vtsedsystems.wordpress.com/

Please contact me if you’d like to learn more about this opportunity.

Dr. Brian Romans
Assistant Professor
Virginia Tech Geosciences
romans@vt.edu

This time last summer I was about half-way through two months at sea on Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 342. A year later we are now working on the first batches of sediment samples acquired during that expedition. Undergraduate researcher, Sarah Ault, has joined the Sedimentary Systems squad and is helping me test and develop laboratory methods necessary to prepare the hundreds of samples we have. The past several weeks has been a bit two-steps-forward-one-step-back, pretty typical when starting a new project/method, but we are making progress. Sarah will be analyzing a subset of these samples to investigate the origin of distinctive 10-50 cm-thick sedimentary cycles (alternating carbonate-rich and clay-rich) from Eocene strata. More on that project in future posts. 

The rest of the research group members are quite busy as well.

Neal Auchter is working on various components of his Ph.D. research on Cretaceous outcrops in Chilean Patagonia. A long and successful field season in February-March yielded a wealth of data, photographs, and samples. This work is part of the Chile Slope Systems project, which is an industry-funded consortium focused on deep-marine stratigraphic architecture. Additionally, Neal will be heading back to South America in August, this time as a participant in the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy sponsored program Pan-American Advanced Studies Institute in Brazil. The program is a multi-national and multi-disciplinary workshop and field campaign aimed at building a more comprehensive understanding of the Amazon River sedimentary system.

Cody Mason is cranking away on samples for a project he’s working on with Virginia Tech faculty Jim Spotila examining rates of tectonic processes in mountains flanking the Coachella Valley in southern California. I’m happy to announce that I was awarded a Doctoral New Investigator grant from the American Chemical Society that will be used for a major component of Cody’s Ph.D. research. We aim to use paleo-denudation rates (from cosmogenic radionuclides) from a ~half-million year old, and now exhumed, fan-delta system in Panamint Valley, California, to investigate the relationship of sediment supply to outcropping stratigraphic patterns. Cody and I did a week of reconnaissance field work in March, and he’ll be heading out there (with Neal as field assistant) in October to collect more data and the first batch of samples.

Finally, we are all missing having Patrick Boyle around in the lab, but he’s taking a breather from his master’s research and doing an internship with ConocoPhillips in Houston this summer.

If you are going to the annual AAPG meeting in Pittsburgh next week check out the posters and talks we are giving.

We have two poster presentations, both of them on Tuesday (May 21) morning from 8:30am-noon in the Exhibition Hall:

• Patrick Boyle (M.S. candidate) will be presenting some preliminary results of his research in a poster titled “Using the Seismic Expression of Contourite Drifts to Understand Mud-Dominated Depositional Systems: Insights from the Newfoundland Ridge, offshore Canada”
• Neal Auchter (Ph.D. candidate) will be showing some brand new data from field work earlier this spring in a poster titled “Stratigraphic Architecture of Punctuated Deepwater Channel Migration, Upper Cretaceous Tres Pasos Formation, Magallanes Basin, Chile”

I will be giving two talks, both in the turbidite session on Tuesday (May 21) afternoon in Room 403/404/405:

• At 1:20 pm I have talk about some work I’ve been doing on modern submarine fan deposits: “Grain-Size Characteristics of Unconfined Deep-Water Deposits in the Quaternary Santa Monica Basin, California: Implications for Reservoir Quality in Distal Turbidite Systems”
• At 3:25 pm I will discuss “Variability in Slope Sandstone Bodies: Linkage to Slope Morphology and Evolution”

See you in Pittsburgh.

It’s been a busy several months for the VT Sed Systems Research group. I have three graduate students that started back in August, working on three separate projects.

Neal Auchter (Ph.D. candidate) and I traveled down to Chilean Patagonia together last month for his first field season in the Magallanes Basin. I spent a week and a half with Neal getting him oriented — geologically and logistically — in the region. I have returned to teach, but Neal is still down there working with our collaborators collecting outcrop data from Cretaceous deep-marine slope deposits as part of the Chile Slope Systems consortium. Neal will be presenting a poster about his work on submarine channel architecture at this year’s AAPG conference in Pittsburgh (May 2013).

Patrick Boyle (M.S. candidate) spent several weeks last semester trouble-shooting loading seismic-reflection data into interpretation/visualization software. Pat’s persistence and some help from experts in the marine geology/geophysics community paid off and he is now analyzing the data. Pat is mapping the distribution and character of deep-sea ‘drift’ deposits on the Newfoundland Ridge to test hypotheses about the onset and history of the Deep Western Boundary Current in the Cenozoic, an important component of global oceanic circulation. Pat is also presenting a poster at AAPG this year about his work.

Cody Mason (Ph.D. candidate) is working on a project with VT faculty member, Jim Spotila, investigating the exhumation and tectonic history in the Coachella Valley region of southern California. He’s been to the field area twice and has a bunch of samples keeping him busy. Cody and I will be heading out to the Panamint Valley area (near Death Valley, CA) next month for some reconnaissance field work related to a new project examining the role of sediment flux variability in stratigraphic architecture. Stay tuned for more about that in coming months.

Our computing and laboratory facilities are up and running in newly renovated space here in Derring Hall. We’ve got two workstations that can run Petrel, Kingdom, ArcGIS, Python, Adobe Creative Suite, and many other software packages. I am working on the finishing touches of a grain size lab, which features a SediGraph 5120 particle size analyzer (accurately measures distributions from <1 micron to 100s of microns). I will have an undergraduate from the Geosciences department working on a research project this summer utilizing this new lab. Additionally, my sedimentary geology colleague here, Ben Gill, has set up a stable isotope lab in the same lab suite that he and his students are using to investigate environmental change in Earth’s past (from Paleozoic to Mesozoic carbonate successions).

I am teaching a seismic stratigraphy course this semester, which hasn’t been offered in our department for several years. We were able to acquire seismic-reflection data, industry-standard software, and even some new hardware from generous donors to the department, all of which is helping to modernize the course and give the students valuable experience.

Next week, I head to Bremen, Germany to help sample the nearly 5 km of sediment cores acquired on IODP Expedition 342 in summer 2012. Over the next few years I will be collaborating with other Exp 342 scientists investigating the history and influence of the Deep Western Boundary Current in the North Atlantic Ocean, especially through significant global climatic change (e.g., Eocene-Oligocene boundary).

Exciting times ahead for the group, stay tuned!

Collaborators at University of Calgary (Steve Hubbard) and University of Utah (Lisa Stright) and I are proposing a new phase of research on the world-class exposures of deep-marine (turbidite) to deltaic strata in the Cretaceous Magallanes Basin of southern Chile. We are building on recent work by Steve Hubbard and his graduate students looking at submarine channel-fill facies relationships and stacking patterns of multiple channel-fill bodies.

The Chile Slope Systems project proposes a multi-disciplinary approach integrating detailed sedimentological characterization and high-resolution stratigraphy to construct 3-D architectural models that can be used to better design reservoir models in analogous subsurface systems. Additionally, continued research on regional correlation and basin evolution provides exceptional system-scale context. Visit this link for much more.

The preliminary report for IODP Expedition 342 that I sailed on this past summer is now published and available here (or click on image below).

The report is >250 pages long, including >70 figures, and summarizes the operations, methods, and preliminary findings of the two-month long expedition. It’s amazing how much work gets done on these expeditions. But the best part is that this report is just the beginning, it really just sets up the framework — much more science to come.

The Fall 2012 semester is now well underway and it’s time for a quick update on what’s going on with the VT Sed Systems Research group.

Firstly, three new students have arrived and are settling in to the Dept. of Geosciences and Blacksburg:

• Patrick Boyle finished his B.S. in geology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) in May 2012. For his master’s thesis, Pat will use seismic-reflection data and information from sediment cores obtained on IODP Expedition 342 to reconstruct the history and dynamics of the Deep Western Boundary Current in the North Atlantic Ocean during the Cenozoic. Pat is also a TA this semester for our Sedimentology-Stratigraphy course for undergrad majors.
• Neal Auchter comes to us from University of Montana where he completed a master’s degree in geology this past summer. Neal’s PhD research will be focused on improving our understanding of submarine channel processes by analyzing Cretaceous deposits exposed as outcrops in the Magallanes Basin of southern Chile. The first field season for Neal will be in early 2013.
• Cody Mason has a B.S. in geology from Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO and will be doing a PhD with both me and VT faculty member Jim Spotila. Cody will be using geologically young sedimentary deposits to investigate the linkage of erosional processes with stratigraphic patterns in a single ‘source to sink’ system in the Great Basin, eastern California.

In other news, I spent two months aboard the JOIDES Resolution scientific drillship this summer for Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 342. This expedition targeted Eocene to earliest Miocene deep-sea drift deposits offshore the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. These sediment records are an exceptional archive of paleoceanographic and paleoclimatic change through significant Earth history events, including global warming events (‘hyperthermals’) in the Eocene and transition to a much cooler planet across the Eocene-Oligocene boundary. There are several research projects that will come out of participating on this expedition. More about that science in the coming months.

The best way to get a sense of the science and day-to-day life during the expedition is to watch this series of short videos (each about 10 minutes long) that were produced during the two-month cruise:

• Episode One: ‘Departure’ — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWO6LnsGj1s&hd=1
• Episode Two: ‘Core on Deck’ – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgouMVdqLDI&hd=1
• Episode Three: ‘Time Machine’ — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qtvK35YhNE&hd=1
• Episode Four: ‘Stormy Science’ — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp8pez3PLQ4&hd=1
• Episode Five: ‘Back to the Future’ — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eudbroUnSPs&hd=1
• Episode Six: ‘Newfoundland’ — http://youtu.be/bWOOoqN0Ec8

That’s it for now, we’ll be using this site in the future to post updates about papers we publish, conferences we attend, photos and stories from field excursions, and much more.

The Sedimentary Systems Research group in the Dept. of Geosciences at Virginia Tech investigates the evolution and dynamics of sedimentary systems across a broad range of spatial and temporal scales using an integrated, source-to-sink approach. Specific research interests include clastic sedimentology, stratigraphic architecture, tectonics of sedimentary basins, deep-sea sedimentation, and erosional-depositional system linkage.

We study ancient and modern sedimentary systems using outcrop, subsurface, and Earth-surface data to address geologic problems related to tectonic and/or climatic change as well as the relationship of intrinsic sedimentary dynamics to patterns observed in the stratigraphic record. Much of our research has implications for improving prediction and characterization of subsurface geology.

The Sedimentary Systems Research group is directed by Brian Romans. Visit the People, Research, and Publications pages to learn more.

We’ll be using this site to post updates about our activities. Stay tuned!