The turbidites.org research group takes a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding deep marine clastic systems, largely via the links between process and architecture. We analyze deep marine systems from the scale of the moving grain, through architectural elements (channels, levees, mass transport deposits, ponded sheet systems) to the scale of the entire slope. The majority of our research is industrially funded and is largely focused on prediction and characterization of hydrocarbon reservoirs, though we believe these problems can only be solved by including a component of basic research.

Members of the Aberdeen group and associated researchers elsewhere are currently engaged in seismic interpretation (particularly of the shallow sections of commercial 3D surveys), seismic forward modeling, numerical modeling of gravity currents, lithospheric modeling, and outcrop analog fieldwork on ancient deep marine clastic systems in Italy (Marnoso Arenacea), Argentina (Paganzo Basin) and Mexico (Rosario Group). Digital mapping techniques permit exploitation of the three-dimensionality of the outcrop.

We have formal collaborations with Montana State University (Mike Gardner), University of California at Santa Barbara (Mason Dykstra at the Institute for Crustal Studies, and Eckart Meiburg and PhD students Brendon Hall and Vineet Birman in the School of Engineering), University of Leeds (Bill McCaffrey/TRG and PhD student Ian Kane) and Istituto di Scienze Marine, Bologna (Fabiano Gamberi and PhD student Giacomo della Valle) and INRI, Tel Aviv (Moshe Strauss).