caprocks

people

Tiago Alves (Cardiff)
Tiago Alves started his appointment with the 3D Lab and Cardiff after successful research positions at the Portuguese Mining and Geological Institute (2002-2004) and Hellenic Centre of Marine Research, Greece (2004-2006). His research gives particular emphasis to the tectono-stratigraphic evolution of continental slope basins through the mean of seismic-reflection data, closely investigating the interaction between active faulting, sedimentation and fluid-flow.
Andy Aplin (Newcastle)
Andy received his PhD from Imperial College London in 1983. He was a Royal Society European Fellow at CRPG in Nancy (France) from 1983 to 1984 and worked at BP as a research geochemist from 1984 to 1990. Since 1990, he has worked at the Newcastle University, where he is currently Professor of Petroleum Geoscience. His main research interests are in the physical and fluid flow properties of fine-grained sediments. Andy completed the Helvellyan triathlon last year in the “Supervet” (aka “ancient”) category and has lined up several more this year.
Joe Cartwright (Cardiff)
Joe received his B.A. degree and his D.Phil. in geology from Oxford University. After a stint at Shell and several years at Imperial College, he is now a research professor of geophysics and director of the 3DLab at Cardiff University. His research interests focus on three-dimensional seismic interpretation in basin analysis, with special emphasis on seal integrity analysis, the genesis of polygonal faults, the emplacement of sandstone and igneous intrusions, and silica diagenesis. Joe’s interests include Welsh rugby, English cricket......and fame. Joe and family recently spent two months on a reality TV show, living as Welsh miners.
Gary Couples (Heriot Watt)
Dr Gary Couples is the Deputy Director of ECOSSE (Edinburgh Collaborative of Subsurface Science and Engineering), which is a Joint Research Institute (part of the Edinburgh Research Partnership in Engineering and Mathematics) composed of academic staff in Heriot-Watt and Edinburgh Universities. Gary obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Geology from Texas A&M in 1974, followed by a Masters from Rice (1977) and a PhD at Texas A&M (1986; the Center for Tectonophysics). Gary gained industrial experience through the eighties at Cities Service in Tulsa (briefly), and then at Amoco in Denver, followed by a stint at consulting. He shifted focus to academic studies by joining the University of Glasgow in 1989, and then moved (in 1998) to his current position at the Heriot-Watt Institute of Petroleum Engineering in Edinburgh, Scotland. His main research interests are concerned with the way that deformation impacts on, and interacts with, fluid flow. His external interests include playing music (in several bands) and, currently, house-building.
Quentin Fisher (Leeds)
Quentin was awarded a PhD in low temperature geochemistry in 1993. He then spent around 15 years working as a consultant on fault sealing in petroleum reservoirs during this time he collected a huge database on the single and multiphase flow properties of fault rocks. In 2008, Quentin moved full-time to the School of Earth and Environment, where he is now Professor of Petroleum Geoengineering and Research Director for the Centre for Integrated Petroleum Engineering and Geoscience. His main research interests include, faulting and fluid flow, petrophysical properties of low permeability rocks, top seal leakage, carbon storage and integrated fluid flow - production simulation – geophysical modelling.
Muhammad Iqbal Hajana (Cardiff)
Hajana joined 3D Lab, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Cardiff University in 2010 as a PhD research student. Before starting his PhD, he worked as a Geophysicist with OGDCL (2004-2010) the E&P Company of Pakistan in the Offshore Department. He has also worked as a QC Geophysicist during 2D and 3D marine seismic data acquisition in the Indus, offshore Pakistan. He received his M.Sc (2003) and M.Phil (2005) degree in geophysics from Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad. Pakistan His PhD research project is on the geophysical expression of free gas in marine sediments, focussing on seismic anomalies and how they relate to fluid flow. He is funded 60% by CAPROCKS.
Hamid Karimi (Newcastle)

Hamid received his BSc in Petroleum Exploration Engineering from Petroleum University of Technology (Iran), followed by two internships at NIOC regarding the petrophysics and well log analysis of carbonates. He then studied for an MSc in Reservoir Engineering and Geosciences at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Géologie (ENSG) in France, including a 5 month internship on seismic fracture characterization in Total, Pau. Hamid’s PhD work within Caprocks mainly focuses on upscaling the flow properties of heterogeneous fine-grained sequences through integrated studies of log scale models, core measurements and 3D seismic architectures. His interests and hobbies include hiking, cycling and astronomy.
Kuncho Kurtev (Newcastle)

Kuncho has an MSc and PhD in Applied Geophysics. He started his career as an engineering geophysicist in Bulgaria. Between 1992 and 1999 he worked as Research Associate and Associate Professor in Applied Geophysics in the Laboratory of Neotectonics, Tectonophysics and Seismotectonics at the Geological Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, working mainly on  Neogene and present day fault activity. In 1991 Kuncho spent six months at the Mining University in Leoben, Austria, specialising in paleomagnetic methods, and in 1998 spent 1 year at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines de Paris, specialising in Petroleum Geostatistics.

Kuncho joined the Caprocks project in 2003 and has worked on a range of numerical issues including the development of new methodologies for estimating mudstone relative permeability, textural analysis of mudstones and the integration of data at scales ranging from sample through wireline to seismic.

Jingsheng Ma (Heriot Watt)
Jingsheng Ma received a BSc in computational mathematics and an MSc in computing science in China, and a PhD in Geographical Information Systems in the UK. He joined Institute of Petroleum Engineering at Heriot-Watt University in the late 90’s. Since then he has worked on a number of industry-sponsored and UK research council funded projects. He is mainly interested in numerical modelling of fluid flow in heterogonous porous media, sedimentary structures and the interaction between fluid flow and geo-mechanics. He has devised a number of numerical techniques for modelling flow in fractured and faulted systems, developed several software packages and have published about 30 publications. His involvement in the Caprocks project is mainly on flow modelling and upscaling.
Ana Maia (Cardiff)
Ana graduated with Honourable Mention in Geology and Natural Resources at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. After her undergraduate studies, she worked as wellsite geologist for the first exploratory wells for geothermal energy in Terceira Island, Azores. Ana joined Geoservices International S.A. in 2007. As Data Engineer, she was responsible for monitoring the drilling process and geological evaluation of exploration wells for the oil and gas industry. Ana has worked mostly in the North Sea (UK and Dutch sectors), Russia and Greenland, for oil companies like Talisman, Wintershall, Total and Cairn Energy. After the offshore adventures she started her PhD project at Cardiff University, aiming to study faulting and fluid flow relationships, providing a better understanding of fluid migration and reservoir leakage in sedimentary basins. Her hobbies include photography, oil painting, cooking and playing the guitar.
Tuviere Omeru (Cardiff)
Tuvie recieved his BSc degree in geology from the Delta State University, Nigeria and MSc degree in Petroleum Geoscience from University of Manchester. His PhD project in Cardiff University focuses on spatial statistical approach to amplitude anomalies related to gas using a combination of 3D seismic and well data. From the mapped spatial distribution of free gas an understanding of their plumbing and how they interconnect will be devised. Tuvie enjoys watching and playing football.