The Orcadian Basin through the outcrops less travelled

The Orcadian Basin has long been famed for its fossil fish and its records of climatic cyclicity but where things get a bit more complicated, towards the basin margins and up into the hinterlands, few geologists have spent the time to try to provide a more wholistic view of the basin and its evolution.  Looking at some of the less well travelled Devonian outcrops from the Orcadian Basin a more integrated picture of the basin development and the associated sedimentary systems can be pieced together.  During this presentation we will take a tour round some of these less well frequented corners of the basin and consider the influence of tectonics and climate on the successions we see.

ZOOM MEETING LINK

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Steven is a part time lecturer at the University of the Highlands and Islands and a geological consultant, based just outside Inverness.  His expertise lies in lacustrine, and more broadly continental sedimentary systems, has been built on extensive study of the Devonian of northern Scotland and the Permian-Triassic of East Greenland and the North Atlantic.

After completing his PhD on the basin scale response of linked lacustrine and fluvial systems to climatic fluctuations (2008) Steven held research positions at CASP and the University of Aberdeen.  During this time he undertook 11 field campaigns in East Greenland, expanding his knowledge of lacustrine systems through work on the superbly exposed Triassic succession, while continuing his work on the Devonian of northern Scotland.  Much of this work was undertaken with a focus on the petroleum systems of the north Atlantic, and latterly included the detailed study of the exhumed hydrocarbon traps of East Greenland. In 2017 Steven took up a lectureship at the University of Exeter and initiated collaboration with GEUS which facilitated continued, and ongoing, research in East Greenland.

Steven moved north in 2018 to work at the University of the Highlands and Islands. Stevens research interests are focused on the response of sedimentary systems to climatic and environmental change, largely focusing on continental systems.  This work allows the interrogation of climatic trends and increases our understanding of global climatic systems back through Earth history.  Furthermore, this research can be applied to regionally recorded climatic signals which can be important in correlation as well as the prediction of facies distribution and is therefore significant for applied subsurface geology.