Wildfires are in the news lately, but if you were in the Hailar Basin, Inner Mongolia during the Early Cretaceous (~100 million years ago) you’d find yourself in a lot of smoke! Even though it was tough times for vegetation, the palaeomires were able to accumulate incredible thicknesses of peat – enough to make 70 […]
On the 7th of June, 9pm Brisbane, Australia time I’ll be giving an invited lecture on some of the palaeoclimate, palaeovegetation and palaeotectonic studies we’ve been doing in the Hailar Basin, Inner Mongolia, China. This is for The Society for Organic Petrology. Read the abstract for the talk below. It’s ONLINE and Open to All! […]
Dr Chairul Nas, one of the most well known geologists in Indonesia, passed away on the 18th of December 2022. Not only was Chairul a treasure trove of geological knowledge but he was also a stellar teacher, researcher and mentor. Those of you that attended the 2015 Annual Meeting of The Society for Organic Petrology […]
Abstracts have been submitted, short course arranged and we are ready to roll! It’s VIRTUAL and virtually free. Come join us: its only the price of TSOP membership for one year (that is, $US25 for professionals and $US15 for students). For more information check out the meeting website at: https://tsop.org/TSOP2022/index.html Between the 12th and 16th […]
Over the last seven months Cipher’s Experts have been working with Mongolian colleagues to assess the coalbed gas resources of Mongolia. The report was signed off just before the 30th of June, on time and to budget. The Australian Mongolian Extractives Program (AMEP – phase 2)/Australian Aid funded the work and our Mongolian team consisted […]
Culturally, it’s not Asia. And it’s not Europe. Although they were under the influence of Russia for decades, its definitely not that either. Mongolia is quite simply unique. I’ve been here for the last two weeks giving some workshops and taking some trips into the countryside; most notably west of Ulaanbaatar, into the center of […]
Colombia is an utterly magical place and the geology is awe-inspiring. If you haven’t visited yet, make a booking. Today. Especially if you are a geologist. We’ve recently published a paper* on the Late Cretaceous (possibly Paleocene) Guaduas Formation in the Eastern Cordillera Basin. The formation is consistently organic–rich and coal beds are common and […]
Excellent paper* just out by Alex Wheeler reconstructing palaeoclimate and palaeoecology in the Early Cretaceous of Inner Mongolia. Amazing what studying organics can tell you!!! I was lucky enough to work on this paper with him and co-authors Prof Jian Shen, Dr Marvin Moroeng,and Dr Jingjing Liu. We did the sampling of this back in […]
Cipher Consulting has a few projects in Mongolia and because of this took part in the first annual donor coordination meeting, held virtually and hosted by the Australian Embassy in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The event took place on March 29, 2022, featuring two key presentations on the subject matter by the Mineral Resources and Petroleum Authority […]
The beautiful thing about data is its uncertainty. That is, in a world where sometimes it is hard to know what is real and what is…well, lets say not real, with data you can actually characterize how certain you are about such and such. After a couple of decades of working in coal seam gas […]