Rifts III: Catching the Wave

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…

A world class international 3-day technical conference – convened by the Petroleum Group of the Geological Society of London

22-24 March 2016, Geological Society of London, Burlington House, London, UK

Link to the Geological Society of London Rifts III website

Given the significant advances in the science or rifts and rifted margins and the increasing availability of new regional seismic and well data, it seems appropriate to revisit the rapidly evolving subject matter and concepts. The objectives of the conference are to challenge paradigms and consider the applicability of new ideas to the latest sub-surface datasets. Contrasting and contradictory models have emerged in the last 5 years from both industry and academia regarding the evolution of rifted margins. Geological “laboratories” such as the Alps, Afar, East Africa the South Atlantic and the Labrador-Iberia conjugate margin are yielding new models for rift evolution with implications for heat flow and creation of accommodation space. The technical program will be designed to address many of the critical parameters raised in these areas e.g. rift architectures, break-up models, continent-ocean boundaries, subsidence patterns, facies distribution and heat flow. The three-day conference will be constructed around six half-day sessions and four broad themes of oral presentation that will polarize the scales of investigation and reveal the direct applicability of the emerging theorems. Many rift model paradigms underpin our understanding and exploration of rifted continental margins and new exploration concepts need to be consistently applied. However, numerous aspects of crustal evolution and lithospheric extension remain contentious, and new sub-surface datasets have highlighted important apparent conjugate paradoxes. Heat flow, subsidence and passive margin formation appear to be subject to both temporal and spatial anomalies related to rift processes. The future success rates of exploration of deep-water continental margins will require the deployment of new insights rapidly and effectively. The third conference in this world-class series seeks to attract leading-edge science with a Thematic Publication planned.

• List of oral contributions
• List of poster contributions

This is the wiki for the third incarnation of the Rifts conference series at the Geological Society London in March 2016. This wiki provides the collaboration platform for the organizers in the lead up to the conference as well as publishing platform for the meeting.

Only for conveners and organizing group:

• Organisation start page