Dr Bhavik Lodhia

Dr Bhavik Lodhia

Honorary Lecturer

Imperial College London, UK (2019): PhD in Geology and Geophysics

University of Oxford, UK (2014): Masters in Earth Sciences (Geology) including BA Hons.

Engineering
Mineral and Energy Resources Engineering

I am an Honorary Lecturer at UNSW and am an IWY Fellow/Research Scientist at CSIRO. I am part of the CSIRO Hydrogen Industry Mission and the Environment team. I also work with the Energy team on a range of projects, including natural hydrogen exploration, fluid migration modelling, risk to groundwater and more. Before this role, I was a Postdoctoral Researcher at UNSW and focused on coupling fluid flow and basin evolution. The highlight of my time at UNSW was developing an algorithm to rapidly calculate basin-scale vertical fluid velocities for a range of fluids, including CO2 and hydrogen. This was recently published in Nature Scientific Reports.

Before joining UNSW, I completed a PhD and was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Geology and Geophysics at Imperial College London and gained an undergraduate masters degree in Earth Sciences from the University of Oxford. I am also a fellow of the Geological Society of London, American Geophysical Union, European Geosciences Union and a keen caver/outdoors explorer.

My wider research interests include geodynamics, mantle convection, basin evolution, carbon capture and storage, low-carbon technology and sedimentary source to sink processes.

I am always keen to explore new avenues of research and collaborations with domestic and international partners.

  • Journal articles | 2024
    Fraser AJ; Lodhia BH; Sims MJE, 2024, 'A Review of the Carboniferous Shale Gas Potential of Northern England: A data-based analysis of why it won't work', Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 534, http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/sp534-2023-56
    Journal articles | 2024
    Lodhia BH; Parent A; Fraser AJ; Nuemaier M; Hennissen JAI, 2024, 'Thermal evolution and resources of the Bowland Basin (NW England) from apatite fission-track analyses and multidimensional basin modelling', Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 534, http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/sp534-2022-15
    Journal articles | 2023
    Ball PW; Roberts GG; Mark DF; Barfod DN; White NJ; Lodhia BH; Nahdi MM; Garni S, 2023, 'Geochemical and geochronological analysis of Harrat Rahat, Saudi Arabia: An example of plume related intraplate magmatism', Lithos, 446-447, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lithos.2023.107112
    Journal articles | 2022
    Lodhia BH; Clark SR, 2022, 'Computation of vertical fluid mobility of CO₂, methane, hydrogen and hydrocarbons through sandstones and carbonates.', Sci Rep, 12, pp. 10216 - 10216, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-14234-6
    Journal articles | 2022
    Lodhia BH, 2022, 'Does surface temperature and climate change affect CO2 stability?', Preview, 2022, pp. 40 - 41, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14432471.2022.2103939
    Journal articles | 2019
    Lodhia BH; Roberts GG; Fraser AJ; Jarvis J; Newton R; Cowan RJ, 2019, 'Observation and Simulation of Solid Sedimentary Flux: Examples From Northwest Africa', Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 20, pp. 4613 - 4634, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2019GC008262
    Journal articles | 2019
    Roberts GG; White N; Lodhia BH, 2019, 'The Generation and Scaling of Longitudinal River Profiles', Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 124, pp. 137 - 153, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2018JF004796
    Journal articles | 2018
    Lodhia BH; Roberts GG; Fraser AJ; Fishwick S; Goes S; Jarvis J, 2018, 'Continental margin subsidence from shallow mantle convection: Example from West Africa', Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 481, pp. 350 - 361, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2017.10.024
    Journal articles | 2014
    Kovin ON; Blinov SM; Belkin PA; Vaganov SS; Lodhia B; Amey R; Yuqian G, 2014, 'Results of Integrated Investigation of Collapse Sinkhole in Sarkayevo Village', Вестник Пермского университета. Геология, 1, pp. 35 - 43, http://dx.doi.org/10.17072/psu.geol.22.35
  • Preprints | 2021
    Lodhia B; Clark S, 2021, The mobility of fluids through rocks, , http://dx.doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1126318/v1
    Theses / Dissertations | 2019
    Lodhia B, 2019, Dynamic subsidence, continental uplift and sedimentary deposition to West Africa’s passive margin, Imperial College London, https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/handle/10044/1/69495

2019: £19,000 grant from Medical Research Council/UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to support early career researchers across academic disciplines.

2014-2018: £85,000 PhD scholarship from Natural Environment Research Council (NERC, UK) and Imperial College London. Scholarship included tuition fees, annual stipend and research grant.

2019: Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface Most read and downloaded paper (Lodhia et al., 2019).

2018: American Association of Petroleum Geologists SEPM best student presentation at AAPG ACE event, Salt Lake City, Utah, US.

2017: Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain best presentation award at the 17th annual African exploration and production conference, London, UK.

Research

2021 - 2023 (UNSW, Australia)

ARC Linkage project 'Kinematica'. My work focuses on coupling fluid flow and dynamic basin processes to produce a rapid resource exploration tool. Recent publication: Lodhia, B.H., Clark, S.R. Computation of vertical fluid mobility of CO2, methane, hydrogen and hydrocarbons through sandstones and carbonates. Sci Rep 12, 10216 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-14234-6.

2019 - Present (Imperial College London, UK)

UK Unconventional Hydrocarbons (UKUH) project. My work focused on estimating shale gas resources in Northern England's Bowland Basin. I am currently a collaborator on this and several other linked projects, including investigating why unconventional shale gas failed in the United Kingdom and possibilities for low-carbon natural gas extraction in shales.

Geological Society of London. I am an editor for an upcoming special volume on sedimentary and geochemical processes in black shales and basin evolution in Northern England, due to be published in late 2021/early 2022.

2014 - 2018 PhD research (Imperial College London, UK)

My PhD research focused on linking dynamic mantle processes, basin development, continental uplift/subsidence and sedimentary source to sink processes across the African continent and in the Mauritanian Basin, West Africa. My PhD thesis is available at https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/handle/10044/1/67891. Publications from my PhD are:

  • GG Roberts, N White, BH Lodhia (2019), The generation and scaling of longitudinal river profiles, Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface 124 (1), 137-153.
  • BH Lodhia, GG Roberts, AJ Fraser, J Jarvis, R Newton, RJ Cowan (2019), Observation and Simulation of Solid Sedimentary Flux: Examples From Northwest Africa, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 1-22.
  • BH Lodhia, GG Roberts, AJ Fraser, S Fishwick, S Goes, J Jarvis (2018), Continental margin subsidence from shallow mantle convection: Example from West Africa, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 481, 350-361.

My Research Supervision

  • Harikrishnan Nalinakumar, UNSW (2021-2024), PhD thesis: Architecture and resources of the South Nicholson Basin, Australia
  • Mackenzie Baker, UNSW (2021-2023), MPhil thesis.

My Teaching

Lecturing

  • 2022: Lecturer for Seismic Imaging course (10-weeks, 5 modules) at School of Mineral and Energy Resources, UNSW
  • 2019-2020: Lecturer for seismic techniques course at Imperial College London (undergraduate and postgraduate)
  • 2019-2020: Lecturer for basin development course at Imperial College London (postgraduate)
  • 2019-2020: Tutor for postgraduate students

Previous research student supervision

  • Otto Whittaker Terrell, Imperial College London (2020). MSc thesis: Unconventional hydrocarbons in the Cleveland Basin, Northern England
  • Youjie Jiang, Imperial College London (2019). MSc thesis: North American Unconventional Basin Benchmark Study.