Michael C. Pope
  • Professor
  • Interim Director, Berg-Hughes Center for Petroleum and Sedimentary Systems
  • Sedimentology
  • Sequence stratigraphy
  • Carbonate
  • Siliciclastic
  • Unconventional resources
Research Areas
  • Ancient Life & Environments
  • Earth Resources & Resilience

Research Interests

My research interests focus on four main topics:

  1. Integrating litho-, chemo- and chronostratigraphy in a regional sequence stratigraphic framework to understand high-frequency and long-term climatic and oceanic processes affecting development of sedimentary successions; towards this end I am currently most interested in the transitions that occur between global icehouse and greenhouse conditions and how these affect reservoir characterization.
  2. Along similar lines as those above I am very interested in fullyr understanding the depositional processes of unconventional resources,
  3. Using detrital zircon geochronology to understand sediment dispersal and large-scale tectonic processes.
  4. Determining the structural deformation (twinning, cataclasis, brecciation, etc.) produced in carbonates by meteorite impacts as a means to establish objective criteria for cratering – similar to shocked quartz.

Research Focus

  • sedimentology
  • sequence stratigraphy
  • carbonate
  • siliciclastic
  • unconventional resources

Educational Background

  • 1985 B.S. Earth and Planetary Sciences, UCLA
  • 1989 M.S. Geology, University of Montana
  • 1995 Ph.D. Geology, Virginia Tech
  • 1995-1998 Post-doctoral Research Associate, MIT

Awards & Honors

  • National Association of Geology Teachers-U.S.G.S. Summer Field Assistantship, 1985

  • Geological Society of America, Sedimentary Division, Outstanding Student Research Proposal 1993

  • Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists Student Excellence and Development Award 1993

  • Chair, Sedimentary Geology Division, Geological Society of America 2007

  • Geological Society of America Fellow, 2008

Selected Publications

  • Donovan, A.D., *Gifford, S., *Pramudito, A., *Meyer, M., Pope, M.C., and S. Paxton, 2019, Unraveling the Secrets of the Eaglebine, Unconventional Resources Technology Conference, Paper 1028, 20 p.

  • * Al-Bader, A., Laya, J.C., Kaczmarek, S.E., Miller, P., and Pope, M.C., 2019, Oomoldic Porosity in a Marine Realm, submitted to Geology

  • * Peavey E., and Pope, M.C., Chronostratigraphy and Lateral Equivalence of Woodbine, Eagle Ford, and Austin Group Deposits in west Texas: An Integrated Framework for Correlation of Cenomanian-Turonian Strata Along the southern Aperture of the Western Interior Seaway: in Review at AAPG Bulletin

  • * Gao, Perez, Miller, B., and Pope, M.C., 2019 Competing Sediment Sources during Paleozoic Closure of the Marathon-Ouachita remnant ocean basin: accepted, GSA Bulletin (68)

  • *Tesch, P., Reece, R.S., Markello, J.R., Laya, J.C., and Pope, M.C., Adding the Missing Third and Fourth Dimensions to Trajectory Analysis in Carbonate Systems: in review at Basin Research

  • * Moustafa M.S.H., Pope, M. C., Grossman, E., and Mriheel, I. Y., in review, The Diagenetic history of the Middle-Late Triassic Al-Aziziyah Formation, Jifarah Basin, Northwest Libya: Sedimentary Geology 

  • * Moustafa M.S.H., Pope, M. C., Pope and Mriheel, I. Y., accepted, High-Resolution Sequence Stratigraphy of the Middle-Late Triassic Al Aziziyah Formation, Northwest Libya: African Journal of Earth Sciences

  • * Hendricks, J.K., Raymond, A.L., Pope, M.C., Metz, C.L., Grossman, E., and *Gong, J., in revision, Original Morphology of the Tepee Buttes Mounds: Implication for Mound Paleoecology and Formation: at Journal of Sedimentary Research

  • * Meyer, M., Pope, M.C. and A.D. Donovan, Chemostratigraphy of the Woodbine and Eagle Ford Groups, Brazos Basin, Texas, accepted at American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin 

  • *Tesch, P., Reece, R. S., Pope, M.C., and Markello, J.R., 2018, Quantification of architectural variability and controls in an Upper Oligocene to Lower Miocene carbonate ramp, Browse Basin, Australia; Marine and Petroleum Geology, v. 91, p. 432-454.

  • Grader, G. W., Isaacson, P. E., Doughty, P. T., Pope, M. C., and DeSantis, M. K., 2017, Idaho Lost River Shelf to Montana Craton: North American Late Devonian stratigraphy, surfaces, and intrashelf basin, in Playton. E., Kerans, C., and Weissenberger, J. A. W., New Advances in Devonian Carbonates: Outcrop analogs, reservoirs, and chronostratigraphy, SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology) Special Publication No. 107, p. 347-379.

  • Tice, M. M., *Quezerque, K. , Pope, M.C., 2017, Microbialite Biosignature Detection by Mesoscale X-ray Fluorescence (mXRF) Mapping, Microbiology, v. 17, p. 1161-1172.

  • *Wahl, P.J., Yancey, T.E., Pope, M.C., Miller, B.V., and Ayers, W.B., 2016, U-Pb detrital zircon geochronology of the Upper Paleocene to Lower Eocene Wilcox Group, east-central Texas: Geosphere, v. 12, no. 5. Doi:10.1130/GES01313.1

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  • * Denotes Student