My name is Grant George Buffett. I’m a physical scientist with many diverse interests. Most of my professional life I have practiced as an earth scientist. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Canada at Memorial University of Newfoundland and both a Masters and Ph.D. in Earth Science at University of Barcelona. I have worked in Canada, Germany, and Spain as a research scientist, and have collaborated with researchers from around the globe. I have spent months at sea on research vessels. My research interests mainly include seismic imaging of tectonic plates and the thermohaline finestructure of the ocean interior.
Apart from my research, I am a proofreader, amateur astronomer and photographer. I love to photograph just about anything, but the night sky has to be one of my favorite challenges, as it’s effectively limitless and there is always more than meets the eye. It has always been the sheer size and scale of astronomical objects that has endlessly filled me with wonder. On the other hand, I have a serious interest in the very small. For that reason, I also love macrophotography.
I appreciate clear, well-written prose, and I am particularly an avid non-fiction reader. You’ll normally find me behind the pages of academic non-fiction that spans a range of disciplines from history and anthropology to particle physics and psychology.
So, it is with this life of passion for science and wonder for the natural world behind me that I offer you the services outlined on this website. I hope I will be your first choice for scientific proof-reading and scientific communication.
My professional research interests lie in using multi-channel seismology for two purposes: 1) to investigate the mechanisms and consequences of plate tectonics, and 2) to study the large scale circulation of thermohaline fine structure within the oceans.
Using seismology I have studied mountain-building events in Northwest Canada (Yukon), looked for hydrocarbon deposits in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (Alberta), imaged kimberlite pipes in the search for diamonds (Saskatchewan), and mapped out base metal deposits in Northern Quebec. More recently I have been researching the active collisional zone between Africa and Iberia (Eurasia).
With respect to physical oceanography I have mainly been interested in the Mediterranean Outflow Water and how it mixes with Atlantic Water in the Gulf of Cádiz and western Iberian margin, and the Tyrrhenian Sea, a deep, isolated basin within the Mediterranean Sea with a circumferential current that produces internal gravity waves, which affect small-scale vertical mixing in the basin’s centre.
Here is my abbreviated Curriculum Vitae:
Education
July 2008 – January 2011: Ph.D. in Earth Sciences at University of Barcelona (Excellent Cum Laude); Researcher focusing on the application of seismic reflection profiling to the study of physical oceanographic processes (Seismic Oceanography) at the Institute of Earth Sciences ‘Jaume Almera’, Barcelona, Spain. Thesis title: Seismic Oceanography: A New Tool to Characterize Physical Oceanographic Structures and Processes.
July 2006 – July 2008: M.Sc. in Geophysics at University of Barcelona in Spain. Thesis title: Seismic Oceanography: New Perspectives on the Physical Characterization of Oceanographic Processes. Thesis awarded the García-Siñeriz Foundation prize for “Best Research Work in Geophysics”, Option B.
September 1995 – May 1999: B.Sc. in Earth Science (Geophysics) at Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Canada. Dissertation title: Mineralization of magnetic oxides and sulphides in Voisey’s Bay, Labrador.
Professional experience
June 2017 – Present: Freelance scientist at Terranova Scientific: www.terranova.barcelona
June 2014 – January 2017: Post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Earth Sciences ‘Jaume Almera’ Barcelona, Spain and member of the Barcelona Center for Subsurface Imaging at the Mediterranean Centre for Marine and Environmental Research (CMIMA) part of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) researching the geodynamics of the Alpine orogeny, with particular emphasis on the tectonic evolution of the Alboran Sea and Gulf of Cadiz.
September 2011 – September 2013: Post-doctoral researcher at GEOMAR – Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Kiel, Germany research and development of seismic inversion and stochastic spectral analysis applied to thermohaline staircases in the Tyrrhenian sea to characterize diapycnal mixing and turbulence. Project funded under Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (IEF) (grant No. FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IEF) with complementary support from Project Poseidon (Programa de Proyectos de Investigación Fundamental no orientada- MICINN, grant No. CTM2010-21569).
July 2006 – May 2011: Pre-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Earth Sciences ‘Jaume Almera’ Barcelona, Spain and member of the Barcelona Center for Subsurface Imaging at the Mediterranean Centre for Marine and Environmental Research (CMIMA) part of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) researching seismic reflection profiling as a new physical oceanographic tool as part of a Masters and a Ph.D. thesis (grant Nos. The GO Project (NEST-2003-1 adventure: no. FP6015603), GEOCEAN: (200530F081), Topoiberia (CSD2006-00041), El Generalitat de Catalunya (2005SGR00874), El Gobierno de España: Ministerio de Educación y Ciencias (CGL200404623).
January 2003 – May 2006: Seismic Data Analyst, Geological Survey of Canada, Ottawa, Canada. 2D and 3D land seismic surveys and vertical seismic profiling from acquisition through interpretation to publication, in the context of the sustainable development of Canada’s natural resources and deep crustal studies of the solid earth.
November 2000 – September 2001: Seismic Data Processor, Veritas DGC Inc., Calgary, Canada. Land 2D seismic data processing for Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin hydrocarbon exploration.
September 1999 – November 2000: Seismic Data Processor, Geo-X Systems Ltd., Calgary, Canada. Land 2D seismic data processing for Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin hydrocarbon exploration.
May 1998 – September 1998: Seismic Data Technician, CTC Pulsonic Ltd., Calgary, Canada. Prepared geometry layouts for subsequent processing of seismic data.
Publications
Seismic oceanography in the Tyrrhenian Sea: Thermohaline staircases, eddies, and internal waves. G.G. , , , , , , … (2017). Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 122, 8503–8523. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JC012726 (Impact factor: 2.939)
The nature of crustal reflectivity at the southwest Iberian margin, G.G. Buffett, M. Torne, R. Carbonell, M. Melchiorre, J. Vergés, M. Fernàndez, Tectonophysics, Volume 721, 2017, Pages 239-253, doi:10.1016/j.tecto.2017.10.006. (Impact factor: 2.433)
Crust and mantle lithospheric structure of the Iberian Peninsula deduced from potential field modeling and thermal analysis, M. Torne, M. Fernàndez, J. Vergés, C. Ayala, M. Carolina Salas, I. Jimenez-Munt, G.G. Buffett, Jordi Díaz, In Tectonophysics, Volume 663, 2015, Pages 419-433, ISSN 0040-1951, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tecto.2015.06.003. (Impact factor: 2.433)
Stochastic heterogeneity mapping as a tool to quantify turbulence in reflectivity layers of thermohaline staircases in the Tyrrhenian Sea, published as conference proceedings, G.G. Buffett, R.W. Hobbs, E.A. Vsemirnova, D. Klaeschen, C. Hurich, C. Ranero and V. Sallarès, International Congress on Acoustics, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, June 2013.
Seismic and geological constraints on the structure and hydrocarbon potential of the northern Whitehorse trough, Yukon, Canada, White, M. Colpron, G.G. Buffett, and L.S. Lane, Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, December 2012, v. 60, p. 239-255, doi:10.2113/gscpgbull.60.4.239 (Impact Factor: 0.81).
Real Time Visualization of Thermohaline Finestructure using Seismic Offset Groups, G.G. Buffett, J.L. Pelegrí, J. de la Puente, R. Carbonell, Methods in Oceanography, ISSN 2211-1220, 10.1016/j.mio.2012.07.003, November 2012 (Impact factor: 1.590).
Oceanografia sísmica – Una nova eina per entendre els oceans (Seismic oceanography: A new tool to understand the oceans, in Catalan), G.G. Buffett, R. Carbonell, Física, June 2012, Societat Catalana de Física.
Seismic oceanography as a tool to monitor climate change, G.G. Buffett, R. Carbonell, GeoQ Newsletter (formerly, “The Eggs”), European Geoscience Union, 35, pp. 5-8, June 2011.
Stochastic heterogeneity mapping around a Mediterranean salt lens, G.G. Buffett, C.A. Hurich, E.A. Vsemirnova, R.W. Hobbs, V. Sallarès, R. Carbonell, D. Klaeschen, B. Biescas, Ocean Sci., 6, 423–429, 2010 (Impact Factor: 2.164).
Relative contribution of temperature and salinity to ocean acoustic reflectivity, Sallarès, B. Biescas, G.G. Buffett, R. Carbonell, J.J. Dañobeita, J.L. Pelegrí, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L00D06, doi:10.1029/2009GL040187, 2009 (Impact Factor: 3.982).
Seismic reflection along the path of the Mediterranean undercurrent, G.G. Buffett, B. Biescas, J.L. Pelegrí, F. Machín, V. Sallarès, R. Carbonell, D. Klaeschen, R.W. Hobbs, Cont. Shelf Res., doi:10.1016/j.csr.2009.05.017, 2009 (Impact Factor: 2.09).
Imaging meddy fine structure using multichannel seismic reflection data, Biescas, V. Sallarès, J.L. Pelegrí, F. Machín, R. Carbonell, G.G. Buffett, J.J. Dañobeita, A. Calahorrano, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L11609, doi:10.1029/2008GL033971, 2008 (Impact Factor: 3.982).
Structural constraints for oil and gas assessment in the Whitehorse Trough: New results from seismic profiling, White, M. Colpron, G.G. Buffett, and B. Roberts, 2006. In: Yukon Exploration and Geology 2005, D.S. Emond, G.D. Bradshaw, L.L. Lewis and L.H. Weston (eds.), Yukon Geological Survey, p. 315-323.
Preliminary Results from the Whitehorse Trough Seismic Survey, Yukon, G.G. Buffett, D. White, B. Roberts, M. Colpron, Geological Survey of Canada, Current Research, 2006-A2.
Meanwhile, I am an occasional blogger, an avid reader of top journalists, and a sometime fiction reader. However, you’ll normally find me behind the pages of academic non-fiction spanning a range of disciplines.
As a science enthusiast, I bring fun and engaging experiments and demonstrations to schools around Catalonia. Your students will learn scientific critical thinking and English from a passionate scientist. But, I’ll also chat with them in Catalan or Spanish, if you want.