Stuart Clarke

Biography

I first came to Keele in 1992 as an undergraduate student studying Geology and Electronic Engineering. I quickly found a love for geology and specialised in Single Honours Geology to BSc level. Following graduation in 1995 I spent a couple of years in the oil industry before returning to Keele in 1999 to study for a PhD in faulting, fault zones and hydrocarbon flow through three dimensional sedimentary basins. It was through this work that I developed a long standing interest in three-dimensional numerical modelling of many aspects of sedimentary basins, including the construction of three-dimensional models from field outcrop and remotely sensed subsurface data, but particularly structural geological aspects of interest to the hydrocarbons industry.

Following graduation with a doctorate in 2001, I joined the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh as a survey geologist and numerical modeller and spent 6 years as a field geologist mapping the Carboniferous sediments of the Northumberland Trough and Aston Block in Northern England. During this time I was able to further develop my research interests in three-dimensional modelling and combine them with survey work to examine basin analysis problems in northern England and elsewhere. This research has lead to the development of commercial fault seal analysis and hydrocarbon flow modelling software that I now use to assess and risk the hydrocarbon potential of plays on behalf of British Geological Survey / BERR and commercial oil companies.

I was appointed Lecturer in Geology at Keele in 2008 and now teach basin analysis and sedimentology at all levels, and geological surveying and map-making on fieldtrips throughout the undergraduate course.

Research and scholarship

My main research areas are the three-dimensional modelling of structural and sedimentological aspects of geological basins from limited subsurface data, and the risking of hydrocarbon potential based on the geology and geological uncertainties. This work has lead to the development of algorithms to examine various aspects of faults and fault zones, their effects on hydrocarbon migration through faulted sediments, geological uncertainty and the risking of potential hydrocarbon accumulations. These algorithms now form a commercial software package that combines structural geometric modelling with sedimentology, hydrocarbon flow modelling and stochastic hydrocarbon accumulation risk analysis.

I am a member of the Basin Analysis Research Group.

Teaching

Year 1

• ESC-10004 Introductory Petrology (Sedimentology)

Year 2

• ESC-20002 Reconstructing Ancient Sedimentary Environments
• ESC-200012 Advance Feildwork Skills

Year 3

• ESC-30003 Advanced Sedimentology: Basin Analysis, Sequence Stratigraphy & Petroleum Geology
• ESC-30026 Independent fieldwork 

PGR/PGT Students

Current PhD Students

• . PhD Thesis title: Climatic cyclicity and environmental interactions in arid continental basins: The Leman Sandstone, Southern North Sea.
• Andy Mitten. PhD Thesis title: Sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy in fluvial systems
• L. Al-Madhachi. PhD Thesis title: The Cretaceous reservoir evolution of the south east Mesopotamian Basin, south-eastern: Geological Modelling evaluation.
• .  PhD Thesis title: Controls upon facies distribution and cyclicity in aeolian systems: implications for successful exploration and development in a mature North Sea basin.
• .  PhD Thesis title: Evaporitic/Clastic interactions in arid continental environments: Implications for reservoir quality, characterisation and fluid flow.
• .  PhD Thesis title:  Fault geometry and fault-zone development in mixed carbonate/clastic successions: Implications for reservoir management

Past PhD students:

• Hazel Beaumont. 2017. Cretaceous sedimentology of the Barmer Basin, Rajasthan, India.  Unpublished PhD Thesis, Keele University. Link
• Andrew Bladon. 2015. The early-stage structural evolution of the Barmer Basin rift, Rajasthan, northwest India.  Unpublished PhD Thesis, Keele University. 
  Resulting papers: Basin Res ; Struct. Geol.
• Amy Gough. 2015. Controls on sediment architecture and deposition in arid continental basin margin systems.  Unpublished PhD Thesis, Keele University.  
• Thomas Randles. 2015.  Structure and geometry of accommodation zones in host and supra-jacent sediments associated with the collapse of salt anticlines.  Unpublished PhD Thesis, Keele University.
• Rosie Smithells. 2014. A comparison of the geological, geodynamic and rheological evolution of the northern and southern Rockall Trough : a numerical modelling approach.  Unpublished PhD Thesis, Keele University.
• Oliver Wakefield. 2010. Aeolian, fluvial and shallow marine sedimentology system interactions in the Permian Cutler Group, southeast Utah, USA.  Unpublished PhD Thesis, Keele University.

PGT students

• Emmanuel Ofomona. 2016. Fracture network attirbutes distribution in Carbonate rocks of the Cantabrian Mountain fold and thrust belt at San Emiliano, Spain.  Unpublished MSc Thesis, Keele University.
• Hannah Warrener. 2016. The sedimentology of wet aeolian systems and their implications on hydrocarbon reservoirs: an example from the Navajo Formation, Western USA. Unpublished MSc Thesis, Keele University.