UH Geology Ph.D. Student Wins International Contest in Structural Geology

Javier Sanchez, a first-year University of Houston Ph.D. student studying petroleum geology and supported by the Caribbean Basins, Tectonics, and Hydrocarbons (CBTH) project of Dr. Paul Mann, was awarded first place in the Post-Graduate category of Midland Valley’s 2011 Student Structural Prize. His submission, “Integration of structural reconstructions and thermochronologic data of the eastern margin of the Middle Magdalena Valley basin, northern Andes, Colombia,” was based on his master's thesis conducted at the University of Texas at Austin.

The Midland Valley Student Structural Prize is an annual competition which seeks to reward student excellence in structural geology. Midland Valley, based in Glasgow, Scotland, is a leader in the field of structural geology. The competition awards prizes for first and second place in Post-Graduate and Under-Graduate categories plus a Best Use of Move category. Move is Midland Valley’s suite of analytical geological software modeling tools.

For his Ph.D. study with the CBTH project, Sanchez is currently using Midland Valley's Move software for creating a series of restored transects through petroleum basins in Colombia in northwestern South America based on surface and subsurface data. He will present these data as his poster at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists meeting in Long Beach, California, this month.

The Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences has a license for the Move software that is currently being used by about 15 graduate students and researchers studying structure and tectonics in Latin America and the Himalayan Mountains. A trainer from Midland Valley visited UH in March to conduct a one-day training workshop.