Welcome to GeoUnion, the graduate student body of the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences. GeoUnion strives to supplement the overall graduate student experience at Rice and DEEPS. GeoUnion represents DEEPS in the overall Rice grad student community, acts as a liaison between students and faculty and organizes a number of intra- and inter-departmental events throughout the academic year.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| August 19-23 | O-Week |
| September 6-8 | Overnight Camping at San Marcos |
| September 13 | Welcome Barbecue |
| Cancelled because of Imelda | Pre-GSA talk |
| October 12-15 | Field Trip to Big Bend |
| October 25 | Halloween Kickball Tournament |
| November 26 | Multicultural Thanksgiving! |
| Dec 6 | Pre-AGU practice session |
| TBA | Enlightenment |
Here’s a list of the resources that you would need to use frequently as graduate students at Rice. The websites of the Rice Graduate Student Association (GSA), Office of International Students and Scholars (OISS), Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (GPS) are platforms which graduate students can use to keep track of upcoming events, funding opportunities, changes in rules and regulations, etc.
Living in a vast city like Houston and exploring a new place can also be challenging, and so we have compiled a list of recommendations for housing and fun things to do in the Space City!
Seismic study will help keep carbon underground
– JUNE 17, 2021
Department of Energy grant backs development of Jonathan Ajo-Franklin’s fiber-optic monitors
Rice University geoscientists and their colleagues will develop sophisticated fiber-optic sensors and seismic sources to find and evaluate small faults deep underground at sites that store carbon dioxide (CO2) to keep it out of the atmosphere.
Rice University graduate student Valeriia Sobolevskaia at the on-campus well site being developed to help geoscientists continue development of fiber-optic sensors to find and evaluate small faults at underground carbon dioxide storage reservoirs. Courtesy of the Ajo-Franklin Lab
The Department of Energy has awarded Rice geoscientist Jonathan Ajo-Franklin $1.2 million to adapt his lab’s distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) method to monitor storage sites where reactivation of small faults could allow leakage into adjacent groundwater or the atmosphere. The project is part of $4 million in grants announced in late May to enhance the safety and security of CO2 storage.
Capturing CO2 and sequestering it underground, often in former oil and gas reservoirs, is seen as a way to bring the nation closer to its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
“Moving forward, we need to focus on reducing emissions, even while fossil fuels are still part of the mix,” Ajo-Franklin said. “Geologic carbon storage has always been viewed as a stopgap solution during the energy transition, but if we can delay emissions for hundreds to thousands of years by keeping it underground, that’s a win.”
The Rice project, with collaborators at Pennsylvania State University and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, aims to enhance Department of Energy-funded technologies known collectively as “continuous active source seismic monitoring” with DAS, which employs fiber-optic sensors permanently installed in boreholes at storage sites.
The sensors would provide better resolution of seismic property changes at a lower cost than current techniques, Ajo-Franklin said. Distributing multiple sensors at an installation would enable the detection of mechanical changes in the rock that could impact a reservoir.
Jonathan Ajo-Franklin
“Surface seismology is actually pretty good at finding faults in sedimentary systems,” he said. “That’s what a lot of oil and gas exploration is built around. We’re trying to understand what it looks like if you pressurize a small fault and cause flow along it. To do a good study, we need to reactivate a fault.”
The Rice team is well ahead of the game, with plans to test the ability of DAS to detect small seismic ruptures at an underground geological laboratory in Switzerland. “Mont Terri has an easily accessible fault within a shale formation that we can pressurize with CO2 and image a rupturing fault patch as it slips in a controlled way.”
Building on his research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where researchers employed undersea telecommunication cable to measure earthquakes for a study in Science, Ajo-Franklin and his group have also drilled three instrumented wells in an out-of-the-way spot on the Rice campus for long-duration tests of their instruments and how they compare to more traditional seismic sensors called geophones.
Ajo-Franklin said federal tax credits enacted in recent years have made carbon sequestration more viable, especially at sites with what he called “clean CO2 streams” that need little processing before injecting back into the ground.
Rice University geoscientist Jonathan Ajo-Franklin and his group have drilled three wells in an out-of-the-way spot on campus for long-duration tests of their fiber-optic instruments. Ajo-Franklin is leading a project funded by the Department of Energy to find and evaluate small faults deep underground at sites that store carbon dioxide (CO2) to keep it out of the atmosphere. Photo by Jeff Fitlow
“Until very recently, there wasn’t a reasonable tax or other monetary incentive for companies to do capture and injection,” he said. “They’re not going to do it for free, because the capital investments are very large.”
He noted CO2 storage could become big business in Texas, where tapped-out reservoirs abound. “Luckily, there are plenty of reservoirs on the Gulf Coast that have already been explored for oil and gas production and are very permeable,” he said.
IMPORTANT NOTICE
Because of COVID-19, the field trip is being postponed to later (date TBD) this year. The seminar will continue via remote meetings through the end of the Spring 2020 semester.
As earth scientists we seek to understand the natural processes that have shaped the world around us through time. The most fundamental requirement to acquiring a deeper understanding of these mechanisms is through observation. EEPS has a strong heritage in field-based research that when combined with analytical excellence, produces skilled scientists with a broad view of Earth as a system. While Rice University is well placed to take advantage of a broad array of research resources, students in Houston do not always have immediate access to nearby geological sites that represent Earth as a system.
A generous gift from Mike Johnson enables EEPS students the opportunity to observe classic and fundamental geologic concepts in the field. Students are in charge of proposing, selecting and managing a field excursion that will benefit everyone in the department. A year-long seminar-based class run by the students prepares them to visit the locality they have selected. Papers are selected, presented and discussed, followed by activities that educate the students on how to run a field-based project. During the field excursion, elected stops will be led and presented by individual students. The knowledge gained before and during the field trip will cumulate into a multi-media field guide that will be made available to the department and public following the trips conclusion.
A significant benefit of a department-wide field excursion is the interaction of students with scientists from various disciplines. Many earth scientists only carry out field work with specialists in their own field. The real discoveries in modern earth science occur when the different disciplines are part of a collective discourse. This trip will have scientists with different backgrounds observe the same outcrops; fostering fruitful discussion that results in the generation of new and unique questions. In addition, this trip may inspire fellowship among EEPS graduate students that will hopefully create life-long collaborations and a cohesive department.
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General route starting in Albuquerque, New Mexico
This year, EEPS elected to utilize Mike Johnson’s gift to lead graduate students on a 7 day field expedition to observe some of the most diverse and economically important geologic terrains in the United States.
In early June of 2020, EEPS will travel through New Mexico, Colorado and Utah, which have easily accessible exposures of metamorphic, sedimentary, and igneous rocks. Starting from Albuquerque, New Mexico they will explore the Rio Grande Rift, the San Juan Volcanic field, and the well exposed Mezozoic stratigraphy on the Colorado Plateau. Observing these diverse geologic terrains will give EEPS graduate students a chance to see how their research interests dovetail with what they observe in nature and provide opportunities to create new ideas.
Pre-Trip planning seminars
Fall semester: The graduate student of the winning field trip proposal organizes a weekly reading group focusing on the regional geology of the four corners region and come up with potential stops.
Spring semester: The weekly reading group continues. Students pick the final outcrops that they would like to visit. Each student is assigned to be an expert on 1-3 stops. Before the field trip, each student will submit their description(s) of their stop for the field guide.
Spring 2020 Seminar Papers
Fall 2019 Seminar Papers
Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences
Rice University
MS-126
6100 Main Street
Houston, TX 77005 USA
Phone: 713.348.4880
Fax: 713.348.5214
Email: geol@rice.edu
