Grant: Alliance Grants

Canada is fortunate to host the energy resources that we've come to depend on to power our lives as well as the mineral resources that will be needed to green our economy and the carbon storage sites required to help tackle climate change. In particular, the offshore margins of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador have the potential to satisfy all of these needs, with the added benefit of a long legacy of offshore exploration that has generated the data necessary to evaluate the potential to employ these resources and sites to fight climate change and support a sustainable future for Canada. Through this proposed partnership with offshore industry experts (Oil and Gas Corporation of Newfoundland and Labrador (OilCo), Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS), and TGS Canada Corporation (TGS)), student researchers at Memorial University of Newfoundland will develop and build a Continuously Evolving Newfoundland Offshore Model (CENOM) by combining all of the existing datasets and using the power of machine learning to unlock the full potential of these datasets. The resulting modern-day "digital twin" offshore model will help us identify regions with enhanced potential for critical minerals and carbon storage sites, and to look back through geological time using computer reconstructions and simulations. These pursuits will ultimately contribute to our fundamental understanding of how continents break apart and ocean basins form.