David Hodgetts

Biography

I received an honours degree in Geology from Durham, followed by a Computing in Earth Science MSc (distinction) from Keele University where I stayed on to undertake a PhD in 3D numerical modelling of continental lithospheric deformation. After a short post doc. at keele working on 3D structural restoration algorithms I moved to Liverpool to join the Strat Group working on a diverse range of projects both subsurface and fieldwork related. I have 18 years’ experience of working on petroleum industry projects ranging in scope from forward modelling, geological software development, seismic interpretation, field mapping and reservoir modelling primarily focussing on siliciclastics, though more recently on carbonates as well. Though quite varied in nature these projects have relied heavily on my combined expertise of geology and computer programming. I program to a professional level in C++, have extensive knowledge of OpenGL, and have a high level of expertise with parallel programming, and recently gained experience in the fields of artificial intelligence and computer vision. My research over the past 10 years has focussed on the application of digital data acquisition techniques, in particular terrestrial laser scanning (lidar) to field geology. This research has focussed on outcrop description and extraction of geostatistical data to assist in subsurface reservoir characterisation. In order to achieve this I have developed software called VRGS (Virtual Reality Geological Studio) to facilitate the processing, interpretation and modelling of lidar and other digital outcrop data types. I have designed and written this software myself, and it is the foremost application for dealing with digital outcrop data. VRGS is about to be made available to the academic community and is currently being used by a number oil companies and international universities. I have over 10 years experience of teaching petroleum geology,reservoir modelling, geostatsistics and fieldwork at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels on petroleum engineering (BEng/MEng) and Petroleum Geoscience (MSc) course, as well as teaching fieldwork modules to undergraduate geologists. I also spent 4 years as course director for the Petroleum Engineering BEng and MEng programmes at Manchester.

Research Interest

Reservoir Modelling, Digital outcrop analogues, Sedimentology, Structural Geology.