Could you showcase your talent in the time it takes the elevator to arrive? Our Postdocs sure can!

September 22nd, 2018

CSIRO Land and Water organised the 2-day Cutting Edge Science workshop  ‘Conceptualisation and modelling of geological fault zones: new insights from teaming-up environmental tracers and geophysics’ in McLaren Vale, South Australia on 18-19 September, 2018.

The symposium was a creation following discussion about how it is an exciting time for this field of work in Australia due a number of emerging research and policy questions related to fluid flow in deeper geological formations. The Symposium is first an opportunity for CSIRO staff to ‘connect’ on this topic, as many of us have approached this problem from different perspectives or are new to the field.

Mike McWilliams gave an overview of how the DEI FSP has been established and what the next steps are now that we are nearing full capacity of employment with projects ramping up!

There was a session dedicated to 3 minute presentations by the DEI FSP postdocs apted titled “elevator pitch sessions” and included Jelena Markov, Cericia Martinez, Uli Kelka and Brady Flinchum.  It is quite an undertaking to engage with the audience and also fully demonstrate what your project is in such a short amount of time.  This is one of the many areas that we are trying to help the postdocs develop in their time at the Future Science Platform.

Topics discussed and presented at the symposium included:

  • Hydrogeological challenges in unlocking unconventional gas reserves in Australia;
  • Noble gas and other environmental tracers for deep fluid flow characterisation;
  • Geophysical characterisation of fault and fracture networks; and
  • Data fusion and modelling of fault zones.

The symposium brought together a select group of 40 international and domestic researchers from academia, research organisations as well as federal and state government. The main focus of the sessions during the symposium was on the characterisation and conceptualisation of faults, with emphasis on hydrochemical methods and on practical aspects of implementing such research in environmental impact, carbon sequestration and geothermal projects. The informal nature of the meeting, including the field trip to Hallet Cove and the visits to the Waite Campus environmental tracer lab and Flinders University, allowed the Deep Earth Imaging early career researchers to engage with international experts to discuss their ongoing research and test some of their ideas.