Mike Simmons
Mike is the Halliburton Technology Fellow for Geosciences and Energy Transition, and a visiting researcher at the Natural History Museum, London. A biostratigrapher by primary training with a PhD on the Cretaceous stratigraphy of Oman, he has had a long and diverse career in both industry and academia, with spells at BP and Aberdeen and Cambridge universities prior to co-leading Neftex, a stratigraphy-based geoscience company that is now part of Halliburton. He has a wide range of research interests, but tends to be focused on stratigraphy, Middle East geology, and the role of geosciences in the energy transition. He regularly writes and presents on the importance of biostratigraphy in academic and applied research.
Paul Bown
I am a micropalaeontologist at University College London and have worked on a wide range of nannofossil related topics including the Triassic origin and Jurassic early evolution of nannoplankton, understanding the fidelity of the preserved nannofossil record, investigating links between evolution and environmental forcing mechanisms, and examining the role of coccolithophores in ecosystem collapse and recovery during mass extinction events. Currently looking at the response of nannoplankton, including threshold and scaling behaviours, during future-relevant global change events such as the Mesozoic OAEs and Paleogene hyperthermals. Alongside this I have a longstanding interest in improving the use of nannofossils in biostratigraphy and the ways in which we of classify the group.
El Mahdi Bendif
I am an evolutionary ecologist at Université du Québec à Rimouski (Canada) and I have worked on various aspect of biodiversity and taxonomy in phytoplankton. Notably, I studied the adaptation of coccolithophores to ocean acidification using evolutionary genetic analyses. More recently, I combined classical micropaleontological methods with recent comparative genomics methods, as part of an integrative approach in which genomic tools enable to probe the biodiversity of marine phytoplankton and reveal the processes underlying its emergence and maintenance in the context of climate change.
Kyoko Hagino
I am a micropaleontologist at the Marine Core Research Institute, Kochi University, Japan. I am interested in the evolutionary morphological changes of coccolithophores. I have worked on the biostratigraphy of Cenozoic calcareous nannofossils, as well as the distribution and seasonal changes of living coccolithophore assemblages. More recently, my research focus on morphological and molecular phylogenetic variation in selected coccolithophore lineages: Gephyrocapsa huxleyi and Braarudosphaera bigelowii, to investigate their diversification process.
Clara Bolton
I am a micropalaeontologist and palaeoceanographer at CEREGE, Aix-en-Provence, France. I reconstruct long-term and orbital-scale climate and carbon cycle changes, and the calcareous nannofossil responses to these changes. I am interested in how we can use the geochemical signals encoded in coccoliths to infer physiological responses to the changing ocean carbonate chemistry. I am particularly interested in the major climate transitions of the last 10 million years, the late Miocene global cooling and the intensification of northern hemisphere glaciation during the Pliocene to Pleistocene transition. I have a long-standing interest in productivity dynamics, how productivity signals are transferred to the fossil record, and the drivers of productivity changes.
Emma Sheldon
I am an applied biostratigrapher at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. I use nannofossils, foraminifera and diatom biostratigraphy for correlation purposes, mostly in the North Sea and Greenland. My expertise covers the Cretaceous to Pleistocene but mainly focuses on the Cretaceous chalks of the North Sea, particularly in the oil and gas industry. My experience includes offshore work on exploration and appraisal wells and biosteering in chalk reservoirs. I also collaborate with engineers, for example for tunnel construction, bridge stability and aquifer characterization, and increasingly apply biostratigraphy to energy transition projects like windfarm placement, geothermal wells, CCUS reservoir and seal characterization.
Tamsin Lawrence
I’m an applied Nannopalaeontologist at PetroStrat. I work both offshore and on routine consultancy projects for major oil and gas operators from around the world, as well as academic institutions and as part of the energy transition. Working for a consultancy provides a varied workload, with the opportunity to work closely with clients and alongside other microfossil disciplines as well as integrate with reservoir geology and seismic data to aid interpretation of basin models and for stratigraphic correlation. I’ve a varied background, working everything from Plio-Pleistocene to Early Jurassic from all across the world, both routine studies and offshore, however my main focus is the Cretaceous chalk of the North Sea. I have been working offshore, using real time stratigraphy at the rig site, for nearly 17 years, mainly in the North Sea, having worked on biosteering, HPHT wells and utilising biostratigraphy for casing and coring picks.