Christopher A-L Jackson

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc

Late Cretaceous intra-plate shortening, and inversion of the Permian to Jurassic rift system, resulted in the ~1000 km-long, S-shaped Syrian Arc Fold Belt which dominates the Levant regional topography through Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria. Subsequent Miocene folding along the same trends of the Late Cretaceous fold belt, was likely associated...

Basal welds can halt the downslope translation of minibasins on salt-detached slopes, commonly giving rise to shortening and extension, updip and downdip, respectively, of the obstructed minibasins. How minibasin obstruction influences seafloor topography and thus deep-water sediment dispersal has not been previously investigated, despite it being...

Predicting the distribution of sedimentary facies during the early stages of deformation of salt-detached continental margins is key to constraining the location and stratigraphic architecture of hydrocarbon and CO2 reservoirs, as well as to understanding the oceanic carbon cycle. Despite its importance, we still have a relatively poor understandin...

There is a well-documented racial and ethnic diversity crisis in Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES) subjects in the Global North that leads to inequities in who does environmental research. The Equator project set out to increase participation and retention of UK-domiciled Black, Asian and minority ethnic students in GEES research b...

The Sixth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects subsurface carbon storage at rates of 1 – 30 GtCO2 yr⁻¹ by 2050. These projections, however, overlook potential geological, geographical, and techno-economic limitations to growth. We evaluate the feasibility of scaling up CO2 storage using a geographically resolv...

Fault-scarp degradation complexes record rift-related erosion of normal fault scarps. At the scale of an individual fault segment, the magnitude and distribution of erosion are related to the total and along-strike variability in fault throw. However, previous studies on degradation complexes focused on one type of rift-related erosional unconformi...

Exploring how normal faults evolve is important for understanding the dynamic processes underlying the initiation and evolution of rift systems. Early-stage fault growth has been largely under-explored due to resolution limitations in seismic reflection data and the lack of three-dimensional exposures in the field. Physical analogue modelling offer...

Understanding the physical properties of fault zones is essential for various subsurface applications, including carbon capture and geologic storage, geothermal energy and seismic hazard assessment. Although three‐dimensional seismic reflection data can image the geometries of faults in the sub‐surface, it does not provide any direct information on...

The Northern North Sea (NNS) is an archetype Giant Injected Sand Province (GISP). Previous studies have documented individual stratigraphically-bound injectite complexes in the North Sea and beyond. Despite two decades of continuous studies, there are still speculations in terms of parent sand identification, visible pathways, fluid source, overpre...

Inherited rift topography controls the sediment routing, timing of sand supply, and sedimentary linkage of early post‐rift depocentres. Exhumed examples of early post‐rift turbidite systems are rare and previous studies have examined the evolution of individual depocentres; in contrast, the detailed evolution of early post‐rift turbidite systems ac...

Mass-transport complexes (MTCs) are common features in all continental margins. In some passive margins, accumulations of stacked MTCs indicate repeated slope failure, which raises the question of whether MTC emplacement may influence or even pre-condition, subsequent slope failures. Here, we use 3D seismic reflection data from the Kangaroo Synclin...

There is a well-documented racial and ethnic diversity crisis in Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES) subjects in the Global North that leads to inequities in who does environmental research. The Equator project set out to increase participation and retention of UK-domiciled Black, Asian and minority ethnic students in GEES research b...

Passively rising diapirs control flank deformation (i.e., within 1 km of the salt-sediment interface) and resultant stratigraphic architecture of syn-kinematic units. Growth strata associated with deformation at the flanks of passive diapirs are known as halokinetic sequences. Very few studies have conducted an integrated analysis of composite halo...

The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) projects subsurface carbon storage at rates of 1–30 GtCO 2 yr ⁻¹ by 2050. These projections, however, overlook potential geological, geographical, and techno-economic limitations to growth. We evaluate the feasibility of scaling up CO 2 storage using a geographically resolved growth model that considers constr...

Polygonal fault systems (PFS) are developed in many sedimentary basins, and their formation, growth, and ultimate geometry have been widely studied. The geometry and growth of PFS forming under the influence of regionally aniso-tropic stresses, however, are poorly understood, despite the fact these structures may serve as key paleo-stress indicator...

The impact of seafloor deformation on sediment routing during the initial phases of extensional salt tectonics is largely unresolved despite influencing the volume of coarse-grained clastic material delivered to the deep sea. Using 3D seismic reflection data from the northern Levant Basin offshore Lebanon, we investigate the interplay between early...

The syn‐rift architecture of extensional basins records deposition from and interactions between footwall‐, hangingwall‐, and axially‐derived systems. However, the exact controls on their relative contributions and the overall variable depositional architecture, and how their sediment volume varies through time, remains understudied. We undertook a...

Welds form due to tectonically induced thinning and/or dissolution of salt, with their composition and completeness thought to at least partly reflect their structural position within the salt-tectonic system. Despite their importance as seals or migration pathways for accumulations of hydrocarbons and CO2, we have relatively few published examples...

Minibasins are important features in salt-bearing basins and are abundant in salt-detached continental slopes where the salt and the overlying sedimentary cover (including minibasins) undergo seaward translation due to gravity. One question which is relevant for understanding the structural evolution of salt-detached slopes is what controls the tra...

Understanding where normal faults are located is critical for an accurate assessment of seismic hazard; the successful exploration for, and production of, natural (including low-carbon) resources; and the safe subsurface storage of CO2. Our current knowledge of normal fault systems is largely derived from seismic reflection data imaging, intraconti...

Fault-horizon cut-off data extracted from seismic reflection datasets are used to study the geometry, displacement distribution, and growth history of normal faults. Our study assesses the influence of three fault interpretation factors (repeatability, measurement obliquity, and cut-off type) on derived fault properties. We investigate uncertaintie...

Continental extension is primarily accommodated by the evolution of normal fault networks. Rifts are shaped by complex tectonic processes and it has historically been difficult to determine the key rift controls using only observations from natural rifts. Here, we use 3D thermo‐mechanical, high‐resolution (<650 m) forward models of continental exte...

To progress decarbonization in the United States, numerous techno-economic models that project CO2 storage deployment at annual injection rates of 0.3–1.7 Gt year–1 by 2050 have been built. However, these models do not consider many geological, technical, or socio-economic factors that could impede the growth of geological storage resource use, and...

Rift basins typically comprise three main tectono‐stratigraphic stages; pre‐, syn‐ and post‐rift. The syn‐rift stage is often characterised by the deposition of asymmetric wedges of growth strata that record differential subsidence caused by active normal faulting. The subsequent post‐rift stage is defined by long‐wavelength subsidence driven by li...

Understanding the physical properties of fault zones is essential for various subsurface applications, including carbon capture and geologic storage, geothermal energy, and seismic hazard assessment. Despite improvements in fault imaging and visualisation, predicting the physical properties of faults and fault zones in the subsurface remains challe...

The growth of normal faults can influence subsurface fluid flow and entrapment within rift basins. However, fault seal studies typically view faults as static structures, with their growth and the potential related temporal changes in hydraulic properties being ignored. In this study, we use borehole data and a high-quality 3D full-stack depth migr...

The factors that control the spatial variation of the topological characteristics of normal fault networks at the rift‐scale are poorly understood. Here, we use 3D seismic reflection data from the northern North Sea to investigate the spatial variation of the geometry, topology, and strain heterogeneity of the Late Jurassic normal fault network alo...

During dyke intrusion, tensile stresses concentrated within the overlying rock may lead to the formation of normal faults. These faults typically form graben-bounding pairs that are sub-parallel to, and dip toward, the upper tip of their underlying dyke. Many studies use geometric properties extracted from the surface expression of such dyke-induce...

Observations of how faults lengthen and accrue displacement during the very earliest stages of their growth are limited, reflecting the fact that the early syn-kinematic sediments that record this growth are often deeply buried and difficult to image with geophysical data. Here, we use borehole and high-quality 3D seismic reflection data from SW Ba...

Rift basins typically comprise three main tectono-stratigraphic stages; pre-, syn-, and post-rift. The syn-rift stage is often characterised by the deposition of asymmetric wedges of growth strata that record differential subsidence caused by active normal faulting. The subsequent post-rift stage is defined by long-wavelength subsidence driven by l...

The Froan Basin and Frøya High are two major structural elements located on the Mid‐Norwegian Continental Shelf and are separated from the Halten Terrace by major west‐dipping normal fault zones. Compared to the Halten Terrace, the Froan Basin and Frøya High are relatively under‐explored and remain poorly understood in terms of their Late Jurassic...

The geological processes that occurred during the deposition of the Mediterranean salt giant are poorly constrained, limiting our understanding of the earliest phase of the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC). Using three-dimensional seismic reflection data from the northern Levant Basin in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, we investigated a previously un...

Substantial magmatism occurred during the development of the marginal basins of the central and southern South Atlantic. Situated on the Brazilian side of the central segment, the Campos and Santos basin represent a transitional margin, located between the magma-rich margin in the north and the magma-poor margin in the south. In addition to magmati...

The Early Jurassic Los Molles Formation in the Neuquén Basin of western Argentina is a rare example of well‐exposed syn‐rift to post‐rift stratigraphy. In the Chachil Graben, the onset of the early post‐rift stage is marked by drowning of a carbonate system and the development of two deep‐marine intraslope lobe complexes. This field‐based study in...

Oozes are the most widespread deep-sea sediment in the global ocean, but very little is known about how changes in their physical properties during burial impact slope stability and related geohazards. We used three-dimensional seismic reflection, geochemical, and petrophysical data acquired both within and adjacent to 13 large (in total ~6330 km2)...

Deformation on shale‐rich continental margins is commonly associated with thin‐skinned extension above mobile shales. Normal faulting and shale mobilization are widespread on such margins, being associated with and controlled by progradation and gravitational failure of deltaic sedimentary wedges. However, due to uncertainties in seismically imagin...

Understanding where normal faults are is critical to an accurate assessment of seismic hazard, the successful exploration for and production of natural (including low-carbon) resources, and for the safe subsurface storage of CO2. Our current knowledge of normal fault systems is largely derived from seismic reflection data imaging intra-continental...

Continental extension is primarily accommodated by the evolution of normal fault networks. Rifts are shaped by complex tectonic processes and it has historically been difficult to determine the key rift controls using only observations from natural rifts. Here, we use 3D thermo-mechanical, high-resolution (<650 m) forward models of continental exte...

During dyke intrusion, tensile stresses concentrated within the overlying rock may lead to the formation of normal faults. These faults typically form graben-bounding pairs that are sub-parallel to, and dip toward, the upper tip of their underlying dyke. Many studies use geometric properties extracted from the surface expression of such dyke-induce...

To help decarbonisation the United States, numerous techno-economic models have projected scenarios including CO2 storage deployment at annual injection rates of 0.3 – 1.1 Gt yr-1 by 2050. However, these projections do not often include the availability of geological storage resource base and socio-economic factors that could limit the technologica...

Our understanding of continental rifting is, in large parts, derived from the stratigraphic record. This record is, however, incomplete as it does not often capture the geomorphic and erosional signal of rifting. New 3D seismic reflection data reveals a Late Permian‐Early Triassic landscape incised into the pre‐rift basement of the northern North S...

Salt tectonics is typically caused by the flow of mobile evaporites in response to post‐depositional gravity gliding and/or differential loading by overburden sediments. This situation is considerably more complex near the margins of salt basins, where carbonate and clastic rocks may be deposited at the same time and interbedded with more mobile ev...

Geoscience is one of the least diverse science disciplines in the Global North in terms of ethnic minority representation. Over recent years, efforts to improve access and participation in the geosciences have increased, with funding bodies recognizing the need to invest in this work. This article discusses the research undertaken within the EQUATO...

Polygonal, layer-bound normal faults can extend over very large areas (>2,000,000 km²) of sedimentary basins. Best developed in very fine-grained rocks, these faults are thought to form during early burial in response to a range of diagenetic processes, including compaction and water expulsion. Local deviations from this idealised polygonal pattern...

Substantial magmatism occurred during the development of the marginal basins of the central and southern South Atlantic. Situated on the Brazilian side of the central segment, the Campos and Santos basin represent a transitional margin, located between the magma-rich margin in the north and the magma-poor margin in the south. In addition to magmati...

Geography, Earth and Environmental Science (GEES) research will play a vital role in addressing the grand challenges of the 21st century, contributing to many of the UN sustainable development goals and the global energy transition. However, geoscience knowledge cannot be successfully applied to global problems that impact people from all walks of...

Reproducibility, the extent to which consistent results are obtained when an experiment or study is repeated, sits at the foundation of science. The aim of this process is to produce robust findings and knowledge, with reproducibility being the screening tool to benchmark how well we are implementing the scientific method. However, the re-examinati...

We here use a 3D seismic reflection dataset from the Outer Kwanza Basin, offshore Angola to examine the structure and growth of salt‐detached strike‐slip faults. The faults occur in four, up to 13.8 km‐long, NE‐trending arrays that are physically linked by restraining bends and releasing stepovers, and which presently overlie Aptian salt and base‐s...

The relationship between normal fault displacement (D) and length (L) varies due to numerous factors, including fault size, maturity, basin tectonic history, and host rock lithology. Understanding how fault D and L relate is useful, given related scaling laws are often used to help refine interpretations of often incomplete, subsurface datasets, wh...

This volume offers an up-to-date ‘geology-without-borders’ view of the stratigraphy, sedimentology, tectonics and oil-and-gas exploration trends of the entire Atlantic Margin and Barents Sea basin. The challenges associated with data continuity and nomenclature differences across median lines are discussed and mitigated. Examples of under-exploited...

Pit craters are quasi‐circular depressions observed on rocky and icy planetary bodies, as well as numerous asteroids. Pit craters are thought to form by overburden collapse into a subsurface cavity or volumetrically depleted zone. Importantly, the surface size and distribution of pit craters may provide an important record of otherwise inaccessible...

Deformation on shale-rich continental margins is commonly associated with thin-skinned extension above mobile shales. Normal faulting and shale mobilization are widespread on such margins, being associated with and controlled by progradation and gravitational failure of deltaic sedimentary wedges. However, due to limitations in our ability to seism...

The climate impact of carbon capture and storage depends on how much CO2 is stored underground, yet databases of industrial-scale projects report capture capacity as a measure of project size. We review publicly available sources to estimate the amount of CO2 that has been stored by facilities since 1996. We organize these sources into three catego...

Submarine slides (including slides, slumps, and debris flows) pose major geohazards by triggering tsunami and damaging essential submarine infrastructure. Slide volume, a key parameter in hazard assessments, can increase markedly through substrate and/or water entrainment. However, the erosive potential of slides is uncertain. We quantified slide e...

Continental extension is accommodated by the development of kilometer‐scale normal faults, which grow during meter‐scale slip events that occur over millions of years. However, reconstructing the entire lifespan of a fault remains challenging due to a lack of observational data with spatiotemporal scales that span the early stage (<10⁶ yrs) of faul...

The Santos Basin, offshore Brazil contains a complex set of salt‐tectonic structures, the origins of which are debated, i.e., the Albian Gap and the São Paulo Plateau. The Albian Gap is a ~450 km long, 60 km wide feature characterized by a post‐Albian, counter‐regional rollover overlying depleted Aptian salt, and in which the Albian is largely abse...

Over the last 50 years, the North Sea and Atlantic Margin, and more recently the Barents Sea, represented key study areas for academic and professionals interested in the exploration for and production of hydrocarbon from the Earth's subsurface. Nowadays, these areas may play a major role in the so-called ‘energy transition’, with the energy indust...

Oozes are the most widespread deep-sea sediment in the global ocean, but very little is known about how changes in their physical properties impact slope stability and related geohazards. Characterisation of the conditions that prime ooze rich slides has been hindered, as physical properties of sediments are modified by the effects of mass wasting....

We here use a 3D seismic reflection dataset from Outer Kwanza Basin, offshore Angola to examine the structure and growth of salt-detached strike-slip faults. The faults occur in four, up to 13.8 km-long, NE-trending arrays that are physically linked by restraining bend and releasing stepovers, and which presently overlie Aptian salt and base-salt r...

Understanding where normal faults are is critical to an accurate assessment of seismic hazard, the successful exploration for and production of natural (including low-carbon) resources, and for the safe subsurface storage of CO2. Our current knowledge of normal fault systems is largely derived from seismic reflection data imaging intra-continental...

A cross-border approach to exploration, appraisal and development is important in mature basins such as the North Sea, where the ‘low hanging fruit’ have long gone. This approach emphasizes the need to see the basin as one geological entity, in order to maximize economic recovery and prepare the area for the energy transition. This volume offers an...

The relationship between normal fault displacement (D) and length (L) varies due to numerous factors, including fault size, maturity, basin tectonic history, and host rock lithology. Understanding how fault D and L relate is useful, given related scaling laws are often used to help refine interpretations of often incomplete, subsurface datasets, wh...

The geomorphology and sediment systems of volcanic areas can be influenced by uplift (forced folding) related to subsurface migration and accumulation of magma. Seismic geomorphological analysis presents a unique tool to study how surface morphology and subsurface magma dynamics relate, given seismic reflection data can image buried landscapes and...

Polygonal, layer-bound normal faults can extend over very large areas (>2,000,000 km2) of sedimentary basins. Best developed in very fine-grained rocks, these faults are thought to form during early burial in response to a range of diagenetic processes, including compaction and water expulsion. Local deviations from this idealised polygonal pattern...

As a part of climate change mitigation plans in Europe, CO2 storage scenarios have been reported for the United Kingdom and the European Union with injection rates reaching 75 – 330 MtCO2 yr⁻¹ by 2050. However, these plans are not constrained by geological properties or growth rates with precedent in the hydrocarbon industry. We use logistic models...

Mechanical stratigraphy controls the growth patterns and dimensions of relatively small normal faults, yet how it influences the development of much larger structures remains unclear. Here, we use 3D seismic reflection data from the Outer Kwanza Basin, offshore Angola to constrain the geometry and kinematics of several normal faults formed in a dee...

Christopher Jackson thinks geologists like himself have a reputation for ravaging the natural world. He's out to make amends, he tells Abigail Beall