UL Lafayette: Geology: Faculty and Staff: Brian Lock

Faculty and Staff

Brian E. Lock

Ph.D. Cambridge University (1969)
Professor of Geology and Graduate Coordinator

Email: belock@louisiana.edu
Phone: 337-482-6823
Madison Hall, Room 227A

Research:
I am a sedimentologist/sedimentary petrologist/stratigrapher, working primarily with carbonate and evaporite rocks, although I have also been involved in a variety of projects on clastic sediments. My current studies include several in West Texas and in Utah. In West Texas we are looking at the Eagle Ford Formation (locally known as the Boquillas Formation) and the Del Rio Formation (both in the Upper Cretaceous). The Eagle Ford is currently of great interest as a shale-gas and shale-oil reservoir rock and we have run instructional field trips for several major oil companies and geological societies. The lowest beds in the Eagle Ford have classic deep-water features, exposed in beautiful road cuts west of the city of Del Rio. The Del Rio Formation, in contrast, consists of shallow water shales, limestones and sandstones with text-book storm sediments (“tempestites”). We are extending studies of both these units along strike. In the past, several of my students have worked on sabkha sediments in the Permian of southeastern Utah and the Permian Basin of Texas and others on modern sabkhas in western Mexico (Gulf of California). Our studies are typically a mix of field work and thin section petrography.

Courses at UL Lafayette:
Geology and Man, Stratigraphy, Sedimentary Petrology, Subsurface Geology, Carbonate Sediments, Advanced Clastic Sedimentology.

Principal Publications
Lock, B. E. and S. L. Voorhies, 1988, Sequence stratigraphy as a tool for interpretation of the Cockfield/Yegua in Southwestern Louisiana., Trans. Gulf Coast Assoc. of Geol. Soc. 38, 123-131.

Lock, B. E. and S. W. Broussard, 1989, The Norphlet reservoir in Mobile Bay: Origins of deep porosity, Trans. Gulf Coast Assoc. of Geol. Soc. 39, 187-194.

Lock, B. E. and C. E. Bishop, 1991, Sedimentology of a modern point bar at Raven Camp on the Red River, central Louisiana, Trans. Gulf Coast Assoc. of Geol. Soc. 41, 432-441. This paper was selected for the Best Paper Award by the Gulf Coast Section of the SEPM.

Broussard, M. J., and B. E. Lock, 1995, Modern analytical techniques for fault surface seal analysis: a Gulf Coast case history, Trans. Gulf Coast Assoc. of Geol. Soc. 45, 87-93. This paper was selected for the AAPG's A. I. Levorsen Award for "the paper that best exemplifies creative ideas in oil and gas exploration."

Lock, B. E., and T. W. Duex, 1996, Xenolithic inclusions within the salt at Weeks Island, Louisiana, and their significance, Trans. Gulf Coast Assoc. of Geol. Soc. 46, 229-234.

Lock, Brian E., 2002, Sabkhas, Ancient and Modern: Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, Transactions, vol. 52, p. 645-657.

Lock, Brian E. and Don H. Kupfer, 2003, "Salt Mines of South Louisiana: Louisiana Geological Survey, Guidebook Series, #7, 85 p., Baton Rouge.

Lock, Brian E. and Ashley Walker Fife, 2004, Contourites and Related Outer Shelf/Upper Slope Sediments, Boquillas Formation, West Texas: American Association of Geological Societies, Annual Convention extended abstracts, Dallas, Texas.

Lock, Brian E., Ashley Walker Fife and Elizabeth Anderson, 2004. Bacteria-Petroleum Reactions: Salt Dome Cap-Rock Genesis Compared with Similar Processes from Permian Outcrops in West Texas: Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, Transactions, vol. 54, p. 361-367.

Lock, B. E., and L. Peschier, 2006, Boquillas (Eagle Ford) upper slope sediments, West Texas: Outcrop analogs for potential shale reservoirs: Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions, v. 56, p. 491-508.

Lock, B. E., R. W. Butler, and R. T. Franklund, 2009, Tempestite sedimentation: An example from the Del Rio Formation of West Texas: Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions, v. 59, p. 463-476.

Ren, M., R. Stern, B. E. Lock, R. Griffin, E. Y. Anthony, and I. Norton, 2009, Origin of igneous rock fragments from South Louisiana salt domes: Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions, v. 59, p. 641-651.

Lock, B. E., L. Peschier, and N. Whitcomb, 2010, The Eagle Ford (Boquillas Formation) of Val Verde County, Texas—A window on the South Texas play: Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Transactions, v. 60, p. 419-434.

About me

I was educated in England, spent two field seasons in the Arctic Islands of Spitsbergen and did my dissertation field work in Newfoundland under the direction of John F. Dewey. I then taught in South Africa (Rhodes University) from 1970 through 1977, mostly researching on the sedimentology of pyroclastics. In 1975-76 I spent a year’s sabbatical in the Mediterranean area (France, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia) comparing modern volcanoes with the ancient ones I had studied in southern Africa. I came to Lafayette in 1977 and have been here ever since, aside from a year's sabbatical working for a small oil company in New Orleans. I am active with the Lafayette Geological Society and the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies (GCAGS) and am a Past-President of both. GCAGS honored me as an Outstanding Educator in 19xx, and with their Distinguished Service Award this year (2005). I was Geology Department Head from 1991 through 2004, and am currently the department’s Graduate Coordinator

I teach short courses for the petroleum industry in basic petroleum geology, sandstone reservoirs, and carbonate reservoirs, which has taken me to exotic places including Nigeria, Indonesia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Argentina, Mexico and Houston.. In 1986 I became a U.S. citizen but am told I still "talk funny".

My Educational Philosophy

If you want to be a geologist, you had better spend some time looking at ROCKS!

Document last revised Wednesday, June 8, 2011 10:39 AM