Chester Davies

Biography

After graduating from Keele University with a First-Class Honours in Geology and Computer science, I stayed on to complete my MPhil in Geology looking at the statistical significance of three-dimensional fluvial reservoir models. This research combined my passion for software development with my love for geology.

In 2022 I began my PhD at Keele University under the supervision of Dr. Stu Clarke. My project focusses on the controls upon aeolian cyclicity (wet and dry systems with high and low accommodation space) and the implications upon reservoir-scale heterogeneity, with application to UKCS CCS targets. This project is funded as part of the GeoNetZero Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT): Geoscience and its Role in the Low Carbon Energy Transition.

Research and scholarship

Project title: The controls upon aeolian cyclicity: implications for reservoir-scale heterogeneity

Supervision: Dr Stu Clarke, Dr Andy Mitten, Dr David Cousins, Dr Travis Swanson, Prof. John Howell

Funding: GeoNetZero Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT): Geoscience and its Role in the Low Carbon Energy Transition

Aeolian strata are some of the best hosts of geofluids in the subsurface, and they have excellent potential as prospective targets for CO2 storage, but maximising their capacity in this regard requires detailed characterisation and regional correlation. It has long been recognised that sedimentary ‘cycles’ exist in aeolian strata, and correlations based upon such cycles provide a means of predicting reservoir character away from the well bore. Both sedimentary and geophysical data suggest the cyclicity may be allogenically controlled, but the precise nature of the controls upon deposition and preservation of the cycles remain under investigated and very poorly constrained. We recognise the cycles, but we do not fully understand why they occur, despite their consequent
value for correlating and for predicting spatial distributions of sediments within aeolian strata.

This work will use a strong combination of sedimentary and geophysical outcrop studies combined with forward numerical stratigraphical modelling to investigate the controls upon the cyclicity that is developed and, crucially, preserved in aeolian strata. The outcrop studies will focus upon the sediments of well characterised aeolian systems that developed under the influence of distinctly different allo-controls and consequently preserve cycles influenced by those controls. Numerical modelling techniques will be used to forward model to solutions that match the preserved cycles. The work will produce a set of models that define how allo-controls influence cyclicity, and geometry of aeolian systems. The models will be applied to regional scale potential UKCS CCS
targets.

Collaborations and grants awards

Awards: Palaeontological Association Undergraduate Prize 2019