Our Faculty

Luca Caracciolo's research centres on Sediment Routing Systems and Sediment Generation — two complementary branches of sedimentary geology that he integrates through Quantitative Provenance Analysis. His work advances approaches that use compositional and textural data not merely to identify sediment sources, but to quantify the relative impacts of tectonics, climate, and lithology on sediment generation and flux, enabling predictive models for both Earth history reconstruction and applied subsurface challenges.

A central theme of his research is connecting pre-depositional dynamics — provenance, climate, transport history, depositional facies — to diagenetic pathways and reservoir quality. His experimental diagenesis programme combines laboratory simulation of early cementation with digital rock physics (microCT imaging and digital sedimentary petrology modelling) to predict porosity-permeability evolution, with direct applications to carbon capture and storage, geothermal energy, and hydrocarbon exploration.

Luca founded the School of Sandstone Reservoirs in 2017 in collaboration with Rob Lander and Linda Bonnell of Geocosm LLC.

Linda Bonnell leads Geocosm's geoscience research efforts and directs many of the company's reservoir quality prediction and risk assessment studies. She has been instrumental in developing Geocosm's Touchstone and Cyberstone systems for reservoir quality assessment — industry-standard tools used globally for predicting sandstone properties in the subsurface.

Linda served as an AAPG Distinguished Lecturer in 2003-2004, delivering presentations on diagenesis and reservoir quality to audiences worldwide. Her research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including a paper that received the prestigious Wallace E. Pratt Memorial Award for best paper in the AAPG Bulletin in 2010.

Rob Lander develops and applies diagenesis and petrophysical models for Geocosm. He co-invented Geocosm's Prism2D, Touchstone, and Cyberstone models, as well as Geologica's Exemplar® model — computational frameworks that revolutionized quantitative prediction of reservoir quality in petroleum exploration.

Rob has published over 25 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals over the past decade and is the author of four "notable papers" in the AAPG Bulletin, including one that received the Wallace E. Pratt Memorial Award for best paper. He served as an AAPG Distinguished Lecturer in 2015, co-edited a special issue of the AAPG Bulletin on sandstone reservoir quality prediction in 2010, and co-convened a Hedberg Conference and a meeting hosted by the Geological Society of London.

Bill Heins is a sedimentary geologist specializing in the relationship between sediment genetic environments in the hinterland and reservoir quality in sedimentary basins. At ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company, Bill helped develop the patented SandGEM system for predicting sand composition and texture as inputs for reservoir quality forward models like Touchstone.

As Product Ambassador for Getech's Globe Knowledge Base, Bill assists petroleum companies in using paleogeographic and paleoenvironmental reconstructions to understand the geographic and stratigraphic distribution of hydrocarbon play elements. His work integrates tectonic evolution, climate history, and sediment routing to predict reservoir properties in underexplored basins worldwide.

Prior to his career as an Earth scientist, Bill was a consultant for the Strategic Management Group of Philadelphia, advising large technology-oriented multinational companies on competitor analysis and strategy formulation — experience that informs his systems-thinking approach to sedimentary basin analysis.

Bill earned a Ph.D. in Geology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1992, as well as a B.A. in Geology and a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1984.

[Bio to be added]