MY RESEARCH

My PhD research is concerned with the Pleistocene carbonate ramp deposits of Favignana, a small island in the Mediterranean Sea located offshore Sicily. The studied rocks encompass mostly clean skeletal sandstones, outcrops of which are comprised by seismic-scale sea cliffs and extraordinarily exposed quarry faces which allow for a 3-dimensional sedimentological analysis. Emphasis is put on the occurrence of thick event beds, interrupting the decametre-scale clinoform succession, which display supercritical flow structures (e.g. antidunes and hydraulic jump-related scour-and-fills), generated from catastrophic sediment gravity flows, or high-density turbidity currents, which raged down the carbonate ramp.

The aim of my PhD study is to understand the processes of sediment production, transport, and deposition in carbonate ramp settings and their implications for reservoir architecture, as exemplified by my work on the Favignana Calcarenite. To this, I apply process-based sedimentology, a skill picked up during my post-graduate degree at Utrecht University, which proves to be a fruitful approach in the field. Further analyses involve determination of biological, geochemical, and mineralogical compositions.

I am convinced that applying recent insights from siliciclastic (turbidite) systems will yield interesting ‘new’ ideas in the clastic carbonate realm.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Field geology
• Cool-water (Heterozoan) carbonates
• Process-based sedimentology
• Reservoir geology
• Turbidity currents and turbidites
• Morphodynamics of supercritical currents
• Flume experiments
• Regional and Alpine geology