Research

Research in Geoscience

The Department hosts several major research groups: The CREWES Project, the Fold-Fault Research Project, the Seismic Processing Facility of the LITHOPROBE Project, and the Applied Stratigraphy Research Group. Each of these groups has annual meetings that involve scientists from outside the university. Students have opportunities to participate in the meetings and to interact with the wider scientific, industrial and professional community. Most researchers in the Department have associated activities within the Institutes for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy (ISEEE). Furthermore, individual research initatives occur in many areas of the geosciences, including petrology, tectonics, glaciology, Quaternary and surficial geology, hydrogeology, planetary geology, seismology and solid earth geophysics. There is much interdisciplinary effort in geochemistry, including aqueous, petroleum and isotopic studies.

The Petroleum Reservoir Group (PRG), a group of experienced scientists, engineers and technicians carrying out research, training highly qualified staff and applying their research results to the solution of problems relating to petroleum production from reservoirs.  While much of the work is applicable to practical activities related to sustainable energy production and the energy industries, some of the research is of quite a fundamental nature with implications for life in the deep biosphere or even for life in other planets such as Mars.

CREWES  (Consortium for Research in Elastic Wave Exploration Seismology), working closely with industry partners, conducts advanced research in resource exploration and development. It focuses on improved acquisition, processing and interpretation of multicomponent seismic data. The principal goal is improved 3-D geological images of the subsurface. The Project operates a state of the art computing facility for both theoretical development and application of data processing techniques, using both field and laboratory data.

LITHOPROBE is Canada's largest national, collaborative, multidisciplinary earth science research program created to answer fundamental questions on the nature and evolution of the lithosphere beneath our country and its surrounding oceans. The University of Calgary is the site of the Lithoprobe Seismic Processing Facility which archives all the digital data acquired by Lithoprobe since 1984, both seismic and non-seismic. Students may access these data for projects, thesis work and further research.

The Fold-Fault Research Project involves integrated geophysical and geological research into the 3-D geometry and evolution of structures of economic and academic interest in fold and thrust belts. Studies are being undertaken at a number of locations along the Rocky Mountain Fold and Thrust Belt, based on 2-D and 3-D seismic data available from sponsoring companies, ERCB well data and new geological mapping.

The Centre for Applied Basin Studies (formerly Applied Stratigraphy Research Group) uses a multidisciplinary approach, including biostratigraphy, ichnology, geochemistry, sedimentology, and sequence stratigraphy to resolve stratigraphic problems, characterize reservoirs, and determine tectonic influences on basin architecture and sedimentologic processes in basins around the world including Western and Arctic Canada.

The Applied Geochemistry group (AGg) employs a wide variety of physical, chemical, isotopic, and modeling techniques to study aspects of the water cycle and to trace the fate of anthropogenic carbon, nitrogen, and sulphur in surface and subsurface environments. The goal is to enhance sustainable practices in energy supply, forestry, and agriculture, while minimizing the impact on terrestrial and aquatic environments.

The Department has a strong international reputation in Solid Earth Processes including petrology, mineralogy, and tectonics. Work in this area involves the integration of field-based structural, petrologic, mineralogic, geochemical, and geophysical studies of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks found in modern and ancient plate margins, most notably mountain belts. A unifying regional context for research activity is the Canadian Cordilleran mountain belt, located on Calgary's doorstep, which is used as a natural laboratory for development and testing of new concepts and techniques.

Major laboratories in the Department that support research in Petrology and Tectonics include the Lithoprobe Seismic Processing Facility (LSPF, mentioned above) and the University of Calgary Laboratory for Electron Microbeam Analysis (UCLEMA).

CHORUS (Consortium for Heavy Oil Research by University Scientists) is a collaborative research project involving geoscience and reservoir engineering which attempts to optimize enhanced recovery in heavy oil fields. CHORUS is known for seismic monitoring and reservoir characterization of cold production fields.

The Department has a very active HYDROGEOLOGY  Research Group , with internationally recognized research programs in surface water-groundwater interaction, hydrogeophysics, isotope hydrology, numerical groundwater modeling, vadose zone hydrology, and alpine hydrology.