Sand Injection Formations Mechanisms in the northern North Sea
This Master's project was designed for Dimitrios Patsos who started his Master's program in Earth Sciences, UiB, in the fall semester 2023. The Master's project is given by the research group Geodynamics and basin studies.
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Project description
Massive occurrences of remobilized sands occur in the Cenozoic strata on the North Sea. Several mechanisms have been suggested for their formation. Such mechanisms may operate in isolation or in combination with other events, including sediment sliding, creep and earthquakes. Differential loading, elevated pore pressures, clay mineral transformation and polygonal fault formation may all have contributed to the presently observed sand geometries.
The thesis will use high resolution 3D data to look for evidence of one or more formation mechanisms. Special emphasis will be placed on evidence for sliding, including distribution of layer-bound faults (including differences in strikes, curvatures and shortening/stretching updip and downdip of injectites, headwall scarps and differential sediment loading). The work will include seismic interpretation in Petrel, analyses of fault patterns and formulation of causal relationship between events and responses. Seismic data as well as well logs will be used to evaluate lithology changes in the involved sediments.
Proposed course plan during the master's degree (60 ECTS):
GEOV300
GEOV361
GEOV364
GEOV251
GEOV375
GEOV302
GEOV352
GEOV362
GEOV274
Field- lab- and analysis work:
Analysis of seismic data and well logs.
