Ed Keavney

Profile

I am a PhD student based in the Institute of Applied Geoscience, School of Earth and Environment – researching experiments on sediment gravity flows in submarine channels.

I joined the research group in October 2020 after graduating from the University of Manchester with a MEarthSci in Geology. My Masters project involved detemining the sedimentological constraints on the distribution and concentration of microplastics in the Mersey Estuary. From collecting sediment samples in the estuary and the Liverpool Bay along with laboratory analysis of the microplastic particles I was able to help determine how the interplay between fluvial, estuarine and shallow marine sedimentology and geomorphology created a hotspot of microplastic contamination in Liverpool Bay. This work recieved the Post Grad (MSc) Prize at the 2020 BSRG AGM.

Research interests

My PhD research is focussed on investigating sediment gravity flows in submarine channels and the deposition of internal levees and depositional terraces. The research also has the additional scope of investigating the settling rates of micropollutants and organic carbon in such settings. 

The research is centred around a series of scaled, physical experiments that will be done in the Sorby Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at the University of Leeds and will investigate how the degree of confinement in submarine channels and sediment gravity flows influence the depositon, evolution and preservation of internal levees and depositional terraces – a topic that it poorly understood in the literature. 

Qualifications

• MEarthSci, Geology.

Research groups and institutes

• Institute of Applied Geoscience
• Sedimentology