The Continental Margins Research Group integrates the academic researchers at the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway who are experts in the study of rifted continental margin processes occurring from plate to reservoir scale with industry partners involved in exploration and R&D activities on continental margins.

Our aim is to improve understanding of the feedbacks between margin processes occurring at different temporal and spatial scales, and ultimately to improve rifted continental margin process analysis and petroleum system prediction

The unique aspect of the Continental Margins Research Group is the integrated and multi-disciplinary analysis of geodynamic, lithospheric, tectonic and sedimentary processes that leading to basin formation and the genesis of petroleum systems on rifted continental margins.

Long-term rationale of the Continental Margins Research Group

The unique integrated multi-disciplinary research of COMPASS will work towards:

• Understanding the dynamics and interactions of complex lithospheric deformation, asthenosphere flow, and tectono-sedimentary processes in rift basins and conjugate margins;
• System analysis of fundamental lithospheric, tectonic and sedimentary processes controlling the evolution of sedimentary basins and petroleum systems on continental margins across a range of scales, from basins, stratal architectures to reservoirs.
• Integrating analyses and dynamic simulations of tectonic and depositional processes during continental rifting and passive margin evolution from plate-tectonic to reservoir scales;
• Explicitly characterising the evolution of margin-scale petroleum systems within such simulations.

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