News
NARG Activities
The North Africa Research Group currently comprises a core of 6 Phd's and 3 PostDocs, with changes throughout the year as PhD's finish and new ones begin.
A typical field season may see 5 researchers spending a total of 4 months between them in the field, from the peaks of the high Atlas Mountains to the deserts of Libya.
Latest stories
Early year fieldwork 2008
January and February 2008
For the first 2 months of the year NARG has already run 2 fieldtrips. 4 of the group visited the Libyan desert for one month investigating the Carboniferous. Conditions in the desert were good for work, despite ice coating the tents on several mornings! A trip was also run to Sicily to look at the Numidian Flysch. Here the weather was slightly tempramental but the trip was non the less successful. Stephane Bodin (postdoc), recently back from Libya will also fly onwards to Tunisia, continuing a Cretaceous north-south transect, which may also reach southern Libya by the end of the year.
Field work season 2007
October 2007
NARG has been exceptionally busy in the field this year. As well as 4 PhD field seasons, 3 postdoctoral research field campaigns and the NARG North African Petroleum System Field Course (run in Morocco), there was also a research away weekend to visit the marine to continental succesions in Ainsa, Spain.The list of fieldwork is as follows;
- Tunisia
- Lower Cretaceous Carbonate Study
- Oligocene/Miocene Numidian Flysch Study - Libya
- Woodside sponsored Carboniferous Mrar and Assedjefar fms study
- 2nd trip to Mrar, and Nubian equivalents to be run in November 2007 - Morocco
- NARG North African Petroleum System Field Course
- Sicily
- Oligocene/Miocene Numidian Flysch Study - Spain
- Ainsa overview trip, Marine to continental transect.
Laboratory opening
July 2006
The Basin Studies and Petroleum Geoscience Group (incorporating NARG) opened its new computing/seismic laboratory at Manchester. The dedicated research laboratory contains a secure Linux server, and 20 workstations running both Windows and Linux 64 bit.
A new 3D visualisation geowall was installed in November 2007 using passive 3D visualisation with the use of glasses. The lab runs industry standard software including Schlumbergers Geoframe and Petrel, RiScan Pro, Polyworks and ArcGIS. This is belived to be the largest dedicated computing research suite in the UK. In addition the school opened a 30 seat dual workstation laboratory dedicated to MSc training in 2006.
Saharan conference completed
April 2006
A conference entitled "The Petroleum systems of Saharan Africa", co convened by NARG and the Geological Society Petroleum Group was held from the 19th to 20th April 2006.
The event was a great sucess with attendees from academia, consultancy and the oil industry. Follow this link to read more and see photographs from the event. More..