Dr Simon Holford

Biography/ Background

I am an ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellow based in the Australian School of Petroleum, and I am Deputy Director of the Centre for Tectonics, Resources and Exploration (TRaX - www.adelaide.edu.au/trax). My main research interest is in understanding the mechanisms by which the interiors of continental lithospheric plates are uplifted and eroded - the process known as exhumation. This is not only a fundamental global tectonic problem which links the dynamics and origins of surface processes such as geomorphic and climatic evolution with lithospheric plate motions and their larger scale origins, but it is increasingly being recognised as having major economic significance due to the key control that exhumation exerts upon hydrocarbon prospectivity. My primary study areas are the passive margins and adjacent continental hinterlands of NW Europe and Southern Australia, where I am currently investigating the links between neotectonic activity, regional intraplate exhumation and plate boundary deformation events. Reconstructing the timing, distribution and underlying mechanisms of exhumation requires a multidisciplinary approach, and the main techniques I employ are thermochronological (apatite fission-track and vitrinite reflectance data), sedimentary rock compaction (using sonic velocity and density logs to estimate subsurface rock porosities) and both 2D and 3D seismic reflection data. I also use these techniques to study a wide range of other geological problems. For example, recent and ongoing projects have utilized 3D seismic data to study the late Pleistocene-Holocene palaeogeography of the North Sea Basin, and apatite fission-track data to constrain the levels of granite emplacement within the upper crust.

Qualifications

PhD, School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham. Title: The Mesozoic-Cenozoic Exhumation History of the Irish Sea Basin System, Western UK. Supervisors: Dr Jonathan Turner, Dr Paul Green, Dr Dave Tappin. External examiner: Prof. John Underhill. July 2006.

BSc (Hons) in Geology and Geography, Keele University, First Class. July 2001.

Teaching Interests

My teaching responsibilities for 2009 include contributions to the following courses.

INTRODUCTION TO PETROLEUM GEOSCIENCE AND THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

This course is taken by 1st year Petroleum Engineering (BEng) students and 2nd year Petroleum Geoscience (BSc) students. I coordinate the practical classes and demonstrate on the associated fieldcamp.

AUSTRALIAN BASINS

This course is taken by Petroleum Geoscience Honours students and third year and coursework Masters petroleum engineering students as part of PE3024/7048 Petroleum Exploration and Management. I delivered a series of lectures covering - a review of sedimentary basins, in terms of their geodynamic origins and petroleum geology - an overview of the development of the Australian continent, emphasising the major petroleum systems - Australian exploration and production in a global context - Australian frontier regions.

RESERVOIR GEOSCIENCE III

I coordinate this course which is taken by 3rd year Petroleum Geoscience (BSc) students, and involves the sedimentological and geophysical characterisation of a working petroleum reservoir.

 

Research Interests

I have recently been awarded a prestigious four-year Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Australian Research Council (ARC). This Fellowship is tied to an ARC Discovery Project entitled Compressional Deformation and Uplift of Australias Passive Southern Margin which has received funding of AUS$413,000 over the period 2008-2011. My collaborators on this project are Professor Richard Hillis (ASP), Dr Paul Green (Geotrack International, Melbourne) and Dr Martyn Stoker (British Geological Survey, Edinburgh).

According to classic plate tectonic theory, passive margins remain stable subsequent to their formation in association with continental breakup. However, Australias passive southern margin has been extensively deformed and uplifted during the Cenozoic. This project aims to determine the distribution, chronology and causes of deformation of the southern margin, addressing particularly the roles of plate boundary and intraplate sources of stress and the processes that serve to localize deformation. To achieve these aims we will integrate structural interpretation of seismic data with thermal and uplift history analysis, sediment mass balance calculations and present-day stress data.

The key benefit of this research will be to advance our understanding of the processes which cause active deformation of continental margins that are predicted by plate tectonic theory to be passive. We will analyse Australias passive southern margin because it is an ideal natural laboratory in which to investigate the causes of deformation of passive continental margins. Hydrocarbon exploration interest and investment has waned along much of Australias southern margin because of lack of understanding of the relative age of the formation of potentially hydrocarbon-bearing structures and the timing of hydrocarbon charge. This project will clarify their relative ages.

Publications

Papers

HOLFORD, S.P., GREEN, P.F., HILLIS, R.R., UNDERHILL, J.R., STOKER, M.S. & DUDDY, I.R. In review. Apatite fission-track analysis reveals multiple post-Caledonian exhumation episodes across northwest Scotland. Journal of the Geological Society, London.

STOKER, M.S., HOLFORD, S.P., HILLIS, R.R., GREEN, P.F. & DUDDY, I.R. In review. Cenozoic post-rift sedimentation off NW Britain: recodring the detritus of episodic uplift on a passive continental margin. Geology.

HOLFORD, S.P., GREEN, P.F., HILLIS, R.R., TURNER, J.P. & STEVENSON, C.T.E. 2009. Mesozoic-Cenozoic exhumation and volcanism in Northern Ireland constrained by AFTA and compaction data from the Larne No. 2 borehole. Petroleum Geoscience, 15, 239-257.

HOLFORD, S.P., TURNER, J.P., GREEN, P.F. & HILLIS, R.R. 2009. Signature of cryptic sedimentary basin inversion revealed by shale compaction data in the Irish Sea, western British Isles. Tectonics, 28, TC4011, doi:10.1029/2008TC002359.

HOLFORD, S.P., GREEN, P.F., DUDDY, I.R., TURNER, J.P., HILLIS, R.R. & STOKER, M.S. 2009. Regional intraplate exhumation episodes related to plate boundary deformation. GSA Bulletin, 121, 1611-1628, doi:10.1130/B26481.1.

HILLIS, R.R., HOLFORD, S.P., GREEN, P.F., DORE, A.G., GATLIFF, R.W., STOKER, M.S., THOMSON, K., TURNER, J.P., UNDERHILL, J.R. & WILLIAMS, G.A. 2008. Cenozoic Exhumation of the southern British Isles. Geology, 36, 371-374.

TURNER, J.P., GREEN, P.F., HOLFORD, S.P. & LAWRENCE, S. 2008. Thermal history of the obliquely divergent Rio Muni (West Africa)-NE Brazil margins during continental breakup. Earth & Planetary Science Letters, 270, 354-367.

HOLFORD, S.P., GREEN, P.F., TURNER, J.P., WILLIAMS, G.A., HILLIS, R.R., TAPPIN, D.R. & DUDDY, I.R. 2008. Evidence for km-scale Neogene exhumation driven by compressional deformation in the Irish sea basin system. In: JOHNSON, H., DORE, A.G., GATLIFF, R.W., HOLDSWORTH, R., LUNDIN, E. & RITCHIE, J.D. (eds). The Nature and Origin of Compression in Passive Margins. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 306, 91-119.

HOLFORD, S., THOMSON, K. & GAFFNEY, V. 2007. Salt tectonics in the Southern North Sea: controls on Late Pleistocene-Holocene Geomorphology. In: GAFFNEY, V., THOMSON, K. & FITCH, S. (eds) Mapping Doggerland: The Mesolithic Landscapes of the Southern North Sea. Archaeopress, Oxford, 61-66.

FITCH, S., GAFFNEY, V., THOMSON, K., BRIGGS, K., BUNCH, M. & HOLFORD, S. 2007. An atlas of the palaeolandscapes of the Southern North Sea. In: GAFFNEY, V., THOMSON, K. & FITCH, S. (eds) Mapping Doggerland: The Mesolithic Landscapes of the Southern North Sea. Archaeopress, Oxford, 67-92.

SMITH, D., FITCH, S., GEAREY, B., HILL, T., HOLFORD, S., HOWARD, A. & JOLLIFFE, C. 2007. The potential of the organic archive for environmental reconstruction: an assessment of selected borehole sediments from the Southern North Sea. In: GAFFNEY, V., THOMSON, K. & FITCH, S. (eds) Mapping Doggerland: The Mesolithic Landscapes of the Southern North Sea. Archaeopress, Oxford, 93-104.

GREEN, P.F., CROWHURST, P.V., DUDDY, I.R., JAPSEN, P. & HOLFORD, S.P. 2006. Conflicting (U-Th)/He and fission track ages in apatite: Enhanced He retention, not anomalous annealing behaviour. Earth & Planetary Science Letters, 250, 407-420.

HOLFORD, S.P., GREEN, P.F. & TURNER, J.P. 2005a. Palaeothermal and compaction studies in the Mochras borehole (NW Wales) reveal early Cretaceous and Neogene exhumation and argue against regional Palaeogene uplift in the southern Irish Sea. Journal of the Geological Society, London, 162, 829-840.

HOLFORD, S.P., TURNER, J.P. & GREEN, P.F. 2005b. Reconstructing the Mesozoic-Cenozoic exhumation history of the Irish Sea basin system using apatite fission-track analysis and vitrinite reflectance data. In: DORE, A.G. & VINING, B. (eds) North West Europe and Global Perspectives: Proceedings of the 6th Petroleum Geology Conference. Geological Society, London, 1095-1108.

WILLIAMS, G.A., TURNER, J.P. & HOLFORD, S.P. 2005. Inversion and exhumation of the St Georges Channel Basin, offshore Wales, UK. Journal of the Geological Society, London, 162, 97-110.

Theses

HOLFORD, S.P. 2006. The Mesozoic-Cenozoic exhumation history of the Irish Sea basin system, western UK. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Birmingham.

Recent Conference Abstracts

HOLFORD, S.P., HILLIS, R.R., HAND, M. & SANDIFORD, M. Thermal weakening localizes intraplate deformation along the southern Australian continental margin. Tectonic Studies Group AGM, Birmingham, January 2010.

HOLFORD, S.P., HILLIS, R.R., GREEN, P.F., DUDDY, I.R., TURNER, J.P. & STOKER, M.S. Distribution, chronology and causes of Mesozoic-Cenozoic uplift of the British Isles. Evolution of the Continental Crust: The Janet Watson Meeting, London, May 2009.

HOLFORD, S.P., TURNER, J.P., GREEN, P.F. & HILLIS, R.R. Signature of cryptic sedimentary basin inversion revealed by shale compaction data in the Irish Sea, western British Isles. Tectonic Studies Group AGM, Keele, January 2009.

HOLFORD, S.P., GREEN, P.F., DUDDY, I.R., TURNER, J.P., HILLIS, R.R. & STOKER, M.S. Regional uplift episodes along the NE Atlantic margin constrained by stratigraphoc and thermochronologic data. AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, December 2009.

HOLFORD, S.P., GREEN, P.F., DUDDY, I.R., TURNER, J.P., HILLIS, R.R. & STOKER, M.S. Regional intraplate exhumation episodes related to plate boundary deformation. AAPG International Conference & Exhibition, Cape Town, October 2008.

HOLFORD, S.P., HILLIS, R.R., GREEN, P.F., DORE, A.G., GATLIFF, R.W., STOKER, M.S., THOMSON, K., TURNER, J.P., UNDERHILL, J.R. & WILLIAMS, G.A. Cenozoic Exhumation of the southern British Isles. AAPG International Conference & Exhibition, Cape Town, October 2008.

GREEN, P.F., DUDDY, I.R., & HOLFORD, S.P. Regional Intraplate Exhumation Related to Plate Boundary Deformation. AAPG International Meeting, Athens, November 2007.

GREEN, P.F., DUDDY, I.R., JAPSEN, P. & HOLFORD, S.P. Synchronous regional kilometre-scale exhumation events around the North Atlantic region. The International Conference on Arctic Margins (ICAM V), Tromso, September 2007.

HOLFORD, S.P., HILLIS, R.R., GREEN, P.F., DORE, A.G., GATLIFF, R.W., STOKER, M.S., THOMSON, K., TURNER, J.P., UNDERHILL, J.R. & WILLIAMS, G.A. Distribution, Chronology and Causes of Cenozoic Exhumation in the Southern British Isles. TSG Annual Meeting, Glasgow, January 2007.

Entry last updated: Thursday, 19 Nov 2009