Staff and Postgraduate Students
Miss Jenna Robertson, MSci (Hons)
Contact Miss Jenna Robertson (email at jenna.robertson@durham.ac.uk)
Education
2008 - present: Durham University, PhD
2004 - 2008: Durham University, MSci Geoscience (1stclass honours)
PhD Project Title:
'Lateral Drainage in the Central North Sea Basin'
During burial of sediments, dewatering takes place as they compact - in response to the stress imposed by the increasing weight of the overburden. With rapid rates of burial, low permeability rocks (such as mudrocks and shales) cannot effectively dewater and they tend to retain fluids – so that they become overpressured.
If high permeability units, such as sandstones are encased within such overpressured shales – they too will be overpressured. However, where high permeability sand units are connected to the sea-floor (as in the North Sea), preferential drainage of fluids can occur along them - from regions of higher overpressure in the deeper parts of the basin, to regions of lower overpressure on the basin margins. Such fluid flow occurring along a pressure gradient is known as Lateral Drainage.
Lateral Drainage is important because it has the ability to create tilted hydrocarbon contacts which can consequently lead to over- and under- estimations of the levels of reserves expected from a reservoir.
My project is focussed on mapping such drainage patterns in the Palaeocene and Eocene strata of the Central North Sea Basin – so that we can gain a better understanding of the drainage pathways and pressure connections between these two systems.
Conferences
November 2010 - PETEX Petroleum Geoscience Research Collaboration Showcase, London, UK: Poster Presentation 'Overpressure distribution within the Palaeogene Strata of the Central North Sea'.
Research Interests
- Overpressure
- Hydrodynamics
- Basin Modelling
- Sedimentology
- Petroleum Geoscience
- The effects of igneous intrusions on sediment porosity