The Industrial Doctorate Centre in Molecular Modelling and Materials Science (M3S) at University College London (UCL) trains researchers in materials science and simulation of industrially important applications. As structural and physico-chemical processes at the molecular level largely determine the macroscopic properties of any material, quantitative research into this nano-scale behaviour is crucially important to the design and engineering of complex functional materials. The M3S IDC is a highly multi-disciplinary 4-year EngD programme, which works in partnership with a large base of industrial sponsors on a variety of projects ranging from catalysis to thin film technology, electronics, software engineering and bio-physics research. The four main research themes within the Centre are 1) Energy Materials and Catalysis; 2) Information Technology and Software Engineering; 3) Nano-engineering for Smart Materials; and 4) Pharmaceuticals and Bio-medical Engineering. These areas of research align perfectly with EPSRC's mission programmes: Energy, the Digital Economy, and Nanoscience through Engineering to Application. In addition, per definition an industrial doctorate centre is important to EPSRC's priority areas of Securing the Future Supply of People and Towards Better Exploitation. Students at the M3S IDC follow a tailor-made taught programme of specialist technical courses, as well as professionally accredited project management courses and transferable skills training, which ensures that whatever their first degree, on completion all students will have obtained thorough technical and managerial schooling as well as a doctoral research degree. The EngD research is industry-led and of comparable high quality and innovation as the more established PhD research degree. However, as the EngD students spend approximately 70% of their time on site with the industrial sponsor, they also gain first hand experience of the demanding research environment of a successful, competitive industry. Industrial partners who have taken up the opportunity during the first phase of the EngD programme to add an EngD researcher to their R&D teams include Johnson Matthey, Pilkington Glass, Exxon Mobil, Silicon Graphics, Accelrys and STS, while new companies are added to the pool of sponsors each year. Materials research in UCL is particularly well developed, with a thriving Centre for Materials Research and a newly established Materials Chemistry Centre. In addition, the Bloomsbury campus has perhaps the largest concentration of computational materials scientists in the UK, if not the world. Although affiliated to different UCL departments, all computational materials researchers are members of the UCL Materials Simulation Laboratory, which is active in advancing the development of common computational methodologies and encouraging collaborative research between the members. As such, UCL has a large team of well over a hundred research-active academic staff available to supervise research projects, ensuring that all industrial partners will be able to team up with an academic in a relevant research field to form the supervisory team to work with the EngD student. The success of the existing M3S Industrial Doctorate Centre and the obvious potential to widen its research remit and industrial partnerships into new, topical materials science areas, which are at the heart of EPSRC's strategic funding priorities for the near future, has led to this proposal for the funding of 5 annual cohorts of ten EngD students in the new phase of the Centre from 2009.

This PhD is an exciting opportunity to contribute a rapidly expanding area of sedimentology and use innovative approaches to investigate the fundamental physical, chemical and biological controls that act upon mudstone variability. Up to 60% of future hydrocarbon production may derive from unconventional Shale Gas sources. This PhD would aid understanding of known plays and examine the potential for the UKCS Shale Gas plays. Until recently geologists have assumed that mudstone successions were largely homogenous with any inhomogeneties produced by changes in primary productivity and anoxia at the time of deposition. Recent studies utilising optical and electron optical methods reveal that these rocks are much more variable than previously assumed. Successive strata (mm and sub-mm scales) can contain very different proportions of material derived from clastic input, primary productivity and diagenetic processes. These studies also reveal that variability is systematic and can be interpreted in terms of varying detrital inputs, biological productivity and subsequent diagenesis using sequence stratigraphic principles. Therefore understanding the fundamental controls that underpin lithofacies variability at mm scales has significant implications for interpreting climate change signals preserved in these strata and for effectively exploring for unconventional shale gas plays. Lithofacies variability at these scales controls the distribution and abundance of organic matter and their hydrofracturing properties. This proposal is linked to, but distinct from, 'Lithofacies variability in mixed clastic carbonate fine-grained successions: implications for identifying Shale Gas exploration sweet spots' submitted by Dr. J. Macquaker (University of Manchester). Major aim: to investigate the variability of siliciclastic mudstone lithofacies in order to determine the fundamental controls on sedimentation and the preservation of organic matter in fine-grained successions. Key Objectives: (1) Describe the variability in mudstone character from Pennsylvanian siliciclastic successions from northern England using a multidisciplinary approach (field logging, optical, electron optical, whole rock geochemical methods). (2) Interpret this variability in terms of fundamental physical, chemical and biological controls operating at and close to the sediment water interface. (3) Investigate geochemical proxies as indicators of redox conditions during deposition that may correspond with enhanced organic matter deposition/preservation. (4) Generate integrated high-resolution sequence stratigraphic models in order to determine the temporal and spatial processes that might lead to unusual silica enrichment in specific environments. Deliverables (1) A mudstone lithofacies scheme, highlighting organic rich facies, that can be interpreted in terms of fundamental controls on mudstone deposition (Objectives 1 and 2). (2) An assessment of geochemical proxies, links to mudstone lithofacies and their significance in interpreting changing redox conditions and association with enhanced organic matter preservation (Objective 3). (3) A high-resolution sequence stratigraphic model that draws together all elements of the basin fill, and examines the temporal and spatial distribution, and preservation, of organic-rich mudstone lithofacies in a siliciclastic-dominated, shallow-marine setting. (Objective 4) The student will be trained in sedimentological and sequence stratigraphic analysis; sedimentological and palaeontological field and laboratory procedures; optical and electron microscopy, geochemical preparation, analytical and interpretation techniques (XRF, XRD and organic carbon). The student will spend between 3 and 18 months working within the company (Leatherhead and Upstream Research Company, Houston), in addition to formal meetings with ExxonMobil supervisors.

The reservoir properties and fluid flow dynamics of thinly-bedded sandstone and shale intervals within shallow marine reservoirs in the North Sea and elsewhere around the world are currently poorly understood. Consequently, the volume of hydrocarbons which is accessible, the rate at which these can be produced, and the optimum development strategy, are difficult to predict. Moreover, it is not clear how the intervals should be characterised using conventional core- and log-derived subsurface petrophysical measurements, or how they should be represented in static and dynamic models. Their contribution to field performance is thus poorly understood. In this project, we will construct well constrained, detailed 3-D models of thinly-bedded, shallow marine sandstones directly from suitable analogue outcrops. The reservoir properties and fluid flow dynamics of the models will be analysed and quantified using a range of novel mathematical and numerical techniques, and methods for predicting them using conventional subsurface core- and log-derived measurements will be investigated. This innovative, multidisciplinary approach, combining detailed 3-D geological outcrop mapping with quantitative analysis, will be essential to understand how to properly characterise and model these complex reservoirs. The project will provide improved understanding of thinly-bedded, shallow marine sandstone reservoir properties and fluid flow dynamics, and how these can be captured in both static and dynamic models. This will yield improved predictions of accessible hydrocarbon volumes and production rates. The results will be applicable to shallow-marine reservoirs in the North Sea and elsewhere around the world. See the attached document 'Case for Support' for further details of the scientific case, aims and objectives, deliverables, and scope of work.