Dr Catherine Stickley
B.Sc. (Hons) M.Sc. D.UC Ph.D.

Managing Director
Siliceous micropalaeontologist
Catherine is a siliceous micropalaeontologist with 27 years’ experience, specialising in the Late Cretaceous to Holocene biostratigraphy and palaeoceanography of diatoms, silicoflagellates, ebridians and the minor siliceous groups.  Building on her M.Sc. in Micropalaeontology  (University College London, 1994), she is currently training in the advanced taxonomy and  application of Mesozoic and Cenozoic radiolarians.  In 1998 she was awarded a Ph.D. from UCL in Cenozoic-Quaternary diatom biostratigraphy and palae-oceanography from offshore New Zealand.  During her subsequent 3-year post-doctorate at UCL, she sailed as sole diatom biostratigrapher for Ocean Drilling Program Leg 189 to offshore  South Australia, and co-ordinated the post-expedition biomagnetostratigraphy involving 6 major microfossil groups and 5 drill-sites.

In 2002, she was awarded a Royal Society-Fulbright Fellowship to Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (New York) where she reconstructed past ocean circulation patterns using diatoms from several drill-sites in the North, South and mid Atlantic.  After this she took a 3-year project at Cardiff University analysing the siliceous microfossil content of Quaternary-Holocene sediments from several cores along the East Antarctic Margin, before moving to Norway in 2006.  There, at the Norwegian Polar Institute and University of Tromsø, she became directly involved in developing a new Paleogene biostratigraphy using siliceous microfossils from the only existing drill-hole in the Central Arctic; the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program “ACEX” sediments from the Lomonosov Ridge.  These analyses led her to re-assess Late Cretaceous-Miocene sediments from 9 drill-sites across the Norwegian-Greenland seas, North Sea, and North Atlantic.  She subsequently developed a new regional siliceous microfossil biostratigraphy that is calibrated to the Global Time Scale and has excellent potential for integration with existing palynological biostratigraphies in the same region.

As one of relatively few specialists in pre-Quaternary marine diatoms, Catherine has a keen interest in the development and training of others in this often overlooked group.  She has helped promote diatoms and other siliceous groups as invaluable tools for global biostratigraphy and palaeoenvironments through nearly 50 peer-reviewed publications on a variety of biostratigraphic and palaeoclimatic issues and time-frames.  These include works published in Nature, Science, Nature Geoscience and PNAS, several book chapters and a number of books / expedition proceedings.  She regularly reviews for several high-profile journals and until recently served 7 years on the editorial board for the Journal of Micropalaeontology.  She has sailed as a diatomist on 6 coring expeditions to both polar regions (total 30 weeks) including most recently as micropalaeontology team leader during the 2010 IODP Wilkes Land Expedition (Antarctica) involving 4 major microfossil groups and 7 drill sites.

Dr Martin Pearce
B.Sc. (Hons) M.Sc. Ph.D. FGS

Director,
Palynologist
Martin is a palynologist with 25 years' experience specialising in the biostratigraphy and palaeo-environmental significance of dinoflagellate cysts (dinocysts) from the Upper Triassic to Quaternary.  He has an M.Sc. in micropalaeontology from University College London (specialising in Late Triassic palynology with Prof. Bill Chaloner FRS and Prof. Alan Lord) and a  Ph.D. in Late Cretaceous palynology and chemo-stratigraphy from Kingston University, London (with Prof. Ian Jarvis).  On completion of his doctorate, Martin joined Millennia Stratigraphic Consultants where he routinely worked on single and multi-well studies from the Quaternary to Triassic internationally, including well-site assignments on the UK Atlantic margin.

In 2004, Martin joined Statoil ASA in Norway, where he worked for almost 10 years as a principal biostratigrapher, on routine and research-based biostratigraphic projects, working closely with exploration, production and international assets.  He was also Statoil's lead biostratigrapher for the 19th and 20th exploration licensing round applications.  In addition to routine biostratigraphic support, Martin also worked on a number of special projects including palaeo-environmental reconstructions using statistically modelled dinoflagellate cyst assemblages, research into the palaeoenvironmental significance of megaspores and their Lower Jurassic biostratigraphy, palaeo-environmental interpretations using sporomorph ecological groupings, and the generation of optimal sequences of bioevents using Ranking and Scaling software.  He also generated a procedure to auto-matically recalculate bioevent ages with the introduction of new Global Time Scales.  In 2008, Martin volunteered to be the sole wellsite biostratigrapher on the 5-week, Statoil-led, Kanumas Group shallow coring expedition of the offshore NE Greenland margin.  In 2010, he accepted a two and a half year assignment to Statoil's Houston office to assist the exploration effort in the Gulf of Mexico (primarily involving the interpretation of nanno- and micropalaeontological data).  During this time he became the principle contact for bio-stratigraphic support for the Alaska asset.

Martin has supervised numerous M.Sc. and Ph.D. students in the UK, Germany, Holland and Poland.  He has (co)written 29 papers on most aspects of dinocyst biostratigraphy and palaeoecology (including 2 encyclopaedia entries), is a reviewer of palynology-based manuscripts for 6 international journals.  In addition he was Cenozoic and Mesozoic palynology editor for the Journal of Micropalaeontology (The Micro-palaeontological Society) for six years, and was a contributor to the NORLEX project (Norwegian Interactive Offshore Stratigraphic Lexicon) and the DARWIN Azolla Project (University of Utrecht, The Netherlands).  He is also a recipient of the Charles Downie Award from The Micropalaeontologial Society for best research paper.

Associates

Recognising the importance of a fully integrated approach, we have forged a strong international, inter-sectoral network, working closely with other micropalaeontologists, geochemists, and magneto-, seismic- and cyclo-stratigraphers across Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia.  Below are some of the companies we are proud to consider associates

Useful links: