Geology at Leicester

Past research students

Our research groups have boasted excellent projects completed by our past research students. These ranged from ostracods in Scotland to volcanism in Pantelleria, Italy. Research in some projects has been continued by our current research students.

Solid Earth

Completed projects conducted by our past research students for the Solid Earth theme.

Name Research title
Joao Afonso  Electrical resistivity measurements in coal: assessment of coal-bed methane content, reserves and coal permeability. (GPB) (2015) 
Hassan Al Marzouki  The potential uses of waste materials from ornamental stones (granite) quarries in Saudi Arabia. (VTMR) (2011) 
Emmanuel Arhin  Use of regolith geochemistry to delineate potential gold targets in savannah regions of Ghana. (VTMR) (2013)
Abdullah Bamousa  Structural development and tectonic significance of the Carmel Head Thrust Belt, Anglesey, NW Wales. (VTMR) (2009) 
Adrian Band  Investigating early Palaeozoic mantle processes: a study of Rheic Ocean ophiolites. (VTMR) (2016)
Kieran Blacker  Evaluating 3D sedimentary architecture as a fundamental control on geotechnical and physical properties (Dogger Bank Round 3 Windfarm zone) (GPB) (2022)
Daryl Blanks The nature and genesis of the Munali nickel sulphide megabreccia deposit, southern Zambia (VTMR) (2021)
Alodie Bubeck  Unravelling the kinematic evolution of segmented rift systems. (VTMR) (2016)
Mark Button  Arsenic contaminated soils - human exposure and environmental toxicology. (VTMR) (2010) 
Ameena Camps  Effects of sediment characteristics, temperature and pressure on CO2 flux and hydrate formation in near surface ocean sediments. (GPB) (2008) 
Angela Castagna Influence of high temperatures on the chemical, physical and mechanical properties of deforming volcanic edifices. Implications for dyke emplacement for volcano instability. (GPB) (2021)
Sam Cheyney  3D quantitative interpretation of archaeomagnetic surveys: application of mathematical modelling to determine depths and physical characteristics of buried materials. (GPB) (2012) 
Rose Clarke  Post-subduction magmatism and mineralisation: the Tuvatu gold deposit, Fiji. (VTMR) (2023) 
Samuel Cox  Finite element methods for modelling mantle dynamics backward in time: finding the most likely scenario. (VTMR) (2018) 
Ben Ellis  Rhyolitic explosive eruptions of the Central Snake River Plain, Idaho: Investigations of the Lower Cavora Mountains successions and surrounding areas.(VTMR) (2009)
Vlad-Victor Ene  Magmatic evolution of a gold telluride district - Metaliferi Mountains, Romania (VTMR)
Peter Fitch  Heterogeneity in the petrophysical properties of carbonate reservoir rocks. (GPB) (2011)
Jennifer Graham  Controls on the temporal and spatial distribution of organic matter in siliciclastic mudstones: implications for source rock development in shale gas plays.(GPB) (2012) 
Stephen Grebby  Application of airborne LiDAR to fault mapping, structural analysis, and identification of fracture controlled mineralisation, Slovenia and Cyprus. (VTMR) (2011) 
Gregor Hahn  High-temperature deformation of tuffs at explosive volcanoes: a field and structural investigation (VTMR) (2022)
Anthony Hardwick  New insights into the crustal structure of the England, Wales and Irish Sea area from local earthquake tomography and associated seismological studies.(GPB) (2009) 
Pablo Davilla Harris  Catastrophic sedimentation and volcanism in southern Tenerife, Canary Islands. (VTMR) (2009) 
David Hartigan  The influence of mineralogy, geochemistry and sedimentology on petrophysical properties in fine-grained successions. (GPB) (2015) 
Nyree Hill  Development of a genetic model for targeting gold mineralisation in the Scottish Dalradian. (VTMR) (2015) 
Nina Jordan  Eruptive history of the peralkaline caldera volcano at Pantelleria, Italy. (VTMR) (2015) 
Simon Jowitt  The geometry and evolution of fluid-flow systems forming volcanic-hosted massive sulphide (VHMS) deposits - the Troodos Ophiolite, Cyprus. (VTMR) (2009) 
Thomas Knott  Ash dispersal from ignimbrite-forming super-eruptions in the central Snake River Plain, Yellowstone hot-spot, USA. (VTMR) (2014) 
Sven Koenitzer  Primary biological controls on UK lower Namurian shale gas prospectivity: understanding a major potential UK unconventional gas resource. (GPB) (2014) 
Alex Lemon  Modelling marine gas hydrate dissociation and sediment stability. (GPB) (2012) 
Nicholas Lloyd  Transport, uptake and behaviour of 'old' depleted uranium in the environment. (VTMR) (2010) 
Walid Ben Mansour  Neogene uplift of Scandinavia: a seismic study of the crust. (GPB) (2017) 
Sam Matthews  Petroacoustic modelling of heterogeneous sandstone reservoirs. (GPB) (2014) 
Emily McCarthy  Seismic structure of the upper mantle beneath the Atlantic Ocean: implications for the lithosphere-asthenosphere system. (GPB) (2015) 
Michael Morton   Integrated sedimentology and isotope geochemistry of a world-class source rock in the Black Sea.
Rawand Noori  Sequence stratigraphy and hydrocarbons prospecting of the Turonian - Maastrichtian successions from outcrop and oil wells in the western Zagros Foreland basin. Kurdistan region, NE Iraq. (VTMR) (2015) 
Sarah Owen  Geological origins of sugar loaf peaks in eastern Brazil and their environmental importance as refugia for Atlantic rain forest biodiversity. (VTMR) (2014) 
Pariyakorn Petkaew 4D imaging of the fault zone environments in North of Thailand using ambient seismic noise. (GPB) (2022) 
Martha Papadopoulou   Investigating the long term evolution of intraplate basalt magmatism in Mongolia. (VTMR) (2023) 
Steve Rippington  The crustal evolution of Nemegt and Altan Uul, Southern Mongolia. (VTMR) (2008) 
Joanne Robbins  Investigating generic methodologies for combining technical natural hazards models with social infrastructure datasets to generate a multi-hazard risk and impact product for the South West Pacific region of Papua New Guinea using models and data feeds from the Met Office. (VTMR) (2015) 
Nick Roberts  From crystal to crust - the Proterozoic crustal evolution of southwest Norway. (VTMR) (2010) 
Abdulaziz Samkari Development of the Red Sea rift system: the role of pre-existing structure on the western margin of Saudi Arabia. (GPB) (2022)  
Thomas Sheldrick What drove Mongolian Mesozoic magmatism: was it crustal or mantle processes? (VTMR) (2019)
Andrew Shore  Selenium geochemistry and isotopic composition of sediments from the Cariaco Basin and the Bermuda Rise: A comparison between a restricted basin and the open ocean setting over the last 500ka. (VTMR) (2011) 
Dan Smith  Understanding active and fossil magmatic-hydrothermal mineralising processes within an Emergent Volcano (Savo, Solomon Islands). (VTMR) (2009) 
Jennifer Smith  The nature and origin of PGE mineralisation in the Rooipoort area, northern Bushveld Complex, South Africa. (VTMR) (2015) 
Philip Smith Neotectonics of the UK: linking crustal deformation and surface evolution. (GPB) (2020)
Amy Stephen  Active and ancient geothermal systems in Tethyan ophiolites as examples of novel solutions for natural CO2 sequestration. (VTMR) (2015)
Tara Stephens  Are sills a record of applied horizontal compression? (VTMR) (2020) 
Annika Szameitat  The rise and erosion of the Canadian Rocky Mountains: Its relation to modern topography, North American climate, and North Hemisphere glaciation. (VTMR) (2017)
Simon Tapster  Magmatic, structural and tectonic controls on CU-AU mineralization in the Solomon Islands arc, South West Pacific. (VTMR) (2014)
Rowan Vernon  Mountain building processes in the Tibetan Foreland: The Precambrian-recent Evolution of the Dunhuang Block, NW China. (VTMR) (2016) 
Laura Ward  Crustal controls on craton-margin magmatic ore deposits: insights from south eastern Africa. (VTMR) (2022)
Bernhard Weise Joint inversion of magnetotelluric, seismic and gravity data. (GPB) (2022) 
Christopher Willcox  Piecemeal - type explosive calderas: eruption behaviour, periodicity, and volcanic structure in Los Humeros volcano, Central Mexican Volcanic Belt. (VTMR) (2011) 
Rebecca Williams  Catastrophic emplacement of hot volcanic density currents over irregular topography, Pantelleria, Italy. (VTMR) (2011) 
Yannick Withoos Hazardous explosive eruptions at a flooded caldera volcano, Philippines (VTMR) (2022) 

Evolution and Past Environments

Completed projects conducted by our past research students for the Evolution and Past Environments theme.

Name Research title
Neil Adams  Out from the shadow of the dinosaurs? Dietary diversity and niche partitioning in Cretaceous and Palaeocene mammals. (2023) 
Jawad Afzal  Paleocene/Eocene foraminifers of the Indus Basin, Pakistan. (2011) 
Adeyinka Aturamu  Glacial-interglacial changes in deep water ventilation and oxygenation in the Bering Sea, subarctic North Pacific: insights from fossilised deep sea biota. (2015) 
David Baines  Tooth microwear: Its use and application in assessing ecological and evolutionary processes within the sub-phylum Vertebrata. (2011) 
Carys Bennett  Lower Carboniferous ostracods and isotopes of the Midland Valley, Scotland: testing for the ecological shift into non-marine environments. (2010) 
Jordan Bestwick   Resolving pterosaur dietary ecology using tooth microwear and biomechanics. (2020) 
Nicola Clark  A molluscan record of Late Cenozoic climate change and palaeoseasonality from South America. (2015) 
Thomas Clements  Decay, preservation and environmental controls on non-biomineralized fossil anatomy: the taphonomy of the Carboniferous Mazon Creek, USA. (2019) 
Laurent Darras  The evolution and macroecological consequences of grazing and shell crushing in fishes. (2012) 
Benjamin Davies  Hydrodynamics and locomotion in early vertebrates. (2009) 
Jospeh Emmings Controls on UK lower Namurian gas shale prospectivity: Understanding the spatial and temporal distribution of organic matter in siliciclastic mudstones. (2019) 
Robert Goodall  Tooth wear in fishes and killer whales - developing 3D microtextural analysis as a robust tool for dietary and trophic analysis in living and fossil aquatic vertebrates. (2017) 
Thomas Wong Hearing
Constraining the marine environment of the Cambrian metazoan adaptive radiation. (2019)
Irfan Jan  The Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) in the clastic sequences of the Kohat Basin, northern Pakistan: a low latitude, Tethyan view of the fastest global warming in recent Earth history. (2011) 
Oliver Knevitt  Exceptional preservation of a Silurian Biota - taphonomy and palaeobiology of the Eramosa Lagerstätte. (2016) 
Xiaoya Ma  The lower Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, Yunnan, China. (2009) 
Laura McLennan Tooth wear and microtextural analysis of diet and feeding in living and fossil chondrichthyans. (2018) 
Mohibullah Mohibullah  Ostracod faunal response to global climate change during the Late Ordovician and Early Silurian. (2012) 
Christopher Nedza  Pigmented and organically preserved soft-bodied fossils – using taphonomic mode to interpret anatomy. (2022)
Leah Nolan  Equatorial sea surface temperature seasonality in the Mississippian (Carboniferous) derived from brachiopod shell carbonate. (2018) 
Alex Page  Taphonomy and diagenesis of graptolites. (2008) 
David Riley  Preservation and taphonomy of the fossils of the Herefordshire (Silurian) Konservat-Lagerstätten. (2012) 
Claudia Sahy  Isotopic ages for the late Eocene - early Oligocene: insights into the greenhouse-icehouse transition. (2014) 
Dinah Smith  The Holocene palaeoenvironmental change in the Fenland of Eastern England. (2014) 
Andrea Snelling  Characterization of stratigraphy and palaeoceanography using graptolites: exploring new concepts in the Aeronian (Silurian) of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. (2009) 
Christopher Stocker 
The biogeographical significance of the Silurian trilobite assemblages of Japan. (2021)
Zardasht Taha  Response of Ostracods to the end Ordovician extinction and early Silurian recovery. (2018) 
Alison Tasker  The micropalaeontology and geological provenance of Roman mosaics. (2016) 
Rowan Whittle  Enigmatic fossils from the Upper Ordovician Soom Shale Lagerstätte, South Africa. (2008) 
James Wilkinson
Taxonomy and biostratigraphy of the Ludlow (Silurian) graptolites. (2022)
Vince Williams  Aspects of dinosaur palaeobiology. (2011) 

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