Marine & Earth Surface Processes
The UCD Marine & Earth Surface Processes Group undertakes research on different aspects of sediment generation, transport and deposition. Although mainly concerned with Earth systems, research by the group extends to other planetary surfaces as well.
A key goal of the group is to better understand how the sedimentary record is generated and to use this record to reconstruct palaeoenvironments and to interrogate past and ongoing environmental change. Within this context, recent work has targeted issues as diverse as sediment fluxes in continental-scale river systems, deep-water sediment gravity flow processes, contourite-turbidite interactions, carbon burial in the deep sea, improved models for sediment entrainment, controls on sandbody geometry and connectivity, and sedimentation in fault-controlled basins. The research thus extends from the grain and pore scale all the way up to how sedimentary basins fill.
A range of tools and approaches are employed, including laboratory experiments, numerical simulations, sediment provenance work, borehole and subsurface characterisation, core scanning, field studies, remote sensing and seismic stratigraphy. Work by the group dovetails with many of the other school groups, including Palaeobiology, Geohazards, Sustainable Geoenergy, Palaeoclimate and Quaternary Geoscience and Fault Analysis.
Recent publications