David Whitworth
- Title
- Postgraduate Research Student
- Location
- William Smith WS 1.08
- Phone
- +44 (0) 1782 734301
- d.w.whitworth@keele.ac.uk
Biography
I graduated from Royal Holloway, University of London in 2019 with a First-Class Honours BSc in Petroleum Geology, where I was also President of the Lyell Geoscience Society – the UK’s oldest geological student body. After my undergrad, I completed an internship with Westwood Global Energy as part of the Global Exploration & Analysis team, synthesising exploration data and writing reports on newly-spud wells worldwide. I stayed on at Royal Holloway to complete an MSc in Petroleum Geoscience, graduating with Distinction in 2020, with a thesis entitled 'Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) potential of salt anticlines & diapirs in the Southern North Sea'.
My PhD research at Keele looks at the potential for CO2 storage in saline aquifers formed in arid-marine margin settings, and the implications for North Sea storage analogues. After completing the first two years full time in-situ at Keele, I took a year out to work as a CCS Reservoir Geologist at Merlin Energy in Herefordshire to gain invaluable industrial skills. I am now combining the two roles part time, while singing professionally as a Lay Clerk at Tewkesbury Abbey.
In my free time, I pursue geoscience communication and outreach in the community through my work as a STEM Ambassador and Fellow of the Geological Society. In 2023 I had the opportunity to present on recent outreach work at the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition.
Research and scholarship
Title:
“An holistic, hierarchical characterisation of arid-marine transitional sediments for use in CO2 storage evaluations”
Funding:
Keele University
Supervision:
Dr Ian Stimpson (Keele) & Helen Bone (Merlin Energy)
Project:
Although popular due to extensive datasets, the geographical locations of depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs are typically non-ideal with respect to the those of major industrial CO2 point sources, nor do they necessarily offer the requisite storage volumes for Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS). Deep saline aquifers offer large volumes of rock for CO2 storage but, on this scale, CCS reservoir character and trap integrity are likely to be constrained by a complex regional (rather than local) interplay between CO2-permeable and impermeable sediments. The arid-marine margin is recognised as a paleo-depositional setting which can generate and preserve large, laterally extensive sandstone reservoirs, with favourable porosity and permeability values.
This project will examine the sedimentological and petrophysical characteristics of the Temple Cap Formation, at a range of scales across southern Utah, in order to provide an analogue for arid-marine margins of this nature. The work will characterise the transitional sediments, in order to build predictive models for CCS reservoir quality. The results will be directly comparable with datasets for potential CCS targets from the North Sea and UKCS, such as the Leman and Sherwood sandstones.
Publications
Collaborations and grants awards
2023:
President’s Award – The Geological Society
President's Awards are conferred upon early career geoscientists who are within eight years (full-time equivalent) of the award of their first degree in geoscience or a cognate subject, who show significant early promise and are judged to have potential to be future leaders in their fields.
These Awards were instituted in 1980 by Professor Perce Allen and the Awards are made annually at the discretion of the incumbent President.
2021/22:
Royal Society Partnership Grant – a collaboration with King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth
The Partnership Grants scheme funds schools and colleges up to £3,000 to run investigative STEM projects in partnership with STEM professionals from academia or industry.
Our project, using aerial photogrammetry to assess coastal vulnerabilities, was awarded the maximum amount in 2021. We are currently surveying the Lincolnshire coastline, in collaboration with Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, and other local partners.
2020:
FindAUniversity Postgrad Awards: Master’s Student of the Year 2020
This award recognised those who have really made a difference in the academic sphere and beyond. Whether they’re a pioneer in their subject area or they’ve done something exceptional in their extra- curricular activities.
Halliburton Landmark Earth Model Award 2020 – Third Prize
The Earth Model Award (EMA) was established as the Neftex Earth Model Award in 2012, in affiliation with the Geological Society of London, to foster the link between industry and academia by rewarding excellence in Master’s level research.
The project was titled: ‘Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) potential of salt anticlines & diapirs in the coastal areas of the Sole Pit High & Silver Pit Basin, UK Sector, Southern North Sea.’
School of Geography, Geology and the Environment
William Smith Building
Keele University
Staffordshire
ST5 5BG
Tel: +44 (0) 1782 733615
School email: gge@keele.ac.uk