Amy Gough
We recently took two new MRes students, Kimberley Johnson and Conor McMillan, to the Central Myanmar Basin to collect data for their research projects. They were also lucky enough to work with an ENI geologist, Kyaw Zin Oo, and an ex-MOGE driver, Ko Jamu. The field campaign was based in the city of Bagan, with smaller excursions to Mount Victoria, Magway, and Monywa. Kimberley was investigating the Miocene fluvio-deltaic deposits of the Pyawbwe, Kuaykkok, and Obogon Formations, and Conor, the Oligocene fluvio-marine deposits of the Padaung, Shwezetaw, and Okhmintang Formations.
Our ongoing Myanmar project looks at the incredibly rapid sedimentation into the Salin sub-basin, where we find almost 20 km of sediment accumulation in just the Cenozoic. We are aiming to both categorise this sediment based on field-data, and to better understand the evolution of both the basin and the sediment routing pathways by using a provenance study. We came away with over a 100 kg of rocks that will be processed for our provenance study back in the mineral separation lab here at Royal Holloway.
The sedimentology of the deposits in Myanmar never fails to amaze! This year we found perfect examples of stacked channels, tree-trunk size clasts of fossilised wood, heavily burrowed horizons, metre-scale concretions, and even a perfectly preserved sharks tooth. We can’t wait to see what the next stage of results tells us about this exciting and dynamic basin
Sharks Tooth
