MSc Petroleum Geoscience

For entry in the academic year beginning September 2027, the tuition fees are as follows:

• MSc (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £17,000
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £41,400

The fees quoted above are fully inclusive of tuition, administration and computational costs.

Fees for entry are subject to yearly review. The University reserves the right to increase your tuition fee by up to 7% each year for courses lasting more than one year, including to reflect rising costs associated with delivering our educational and wider student experience. Postgraduate fees information .

Always contact the admissions team if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance.

International student CAS deposit

Self-funded international applicants are required to pay a deposit of £2500 towards their tuition fees before a confirmation of acceptance for studies (CAS) is issued. Some applicants will be required to pay a higher deposit. More information on tuition fee deposits .

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

The Energy Transition Centre for Masters’ Training (CMT) and the Geoscience Energy Society of Great Britain (GESGB) will be jointly funding 12 Bursaries, each valued at £6000 per annum, for students who will be enrolled in an energy geoscience-related MSc course for 2027 entry.

Funding of the Bursaries is kindly provided equally by GESGB and CMT sponsors: bp, CNOOC and ExxonMobil.

The scholarships are available for UK and International students holding an offer on one of our Geosciences taught master's courses before 9 April 2027 .

All eligible students will be automatically considered for the bursary, there is no need to contact the department.

The University of Manchester can nominate up to 2 students for the award.

We also offer a number of postgraduate taught scholarships and awards to outstanding UK and international students each year.

The University of Manchester is committed to widening participation in master's study, and allocates £300,000 in funding each year. See our Manchester Master's Bursaries .

See our range of merit-based master’s scholarships for international students .

Dicsover more about our Manchester Alumni loyalty 10% discount. Find out if you're eligible and how to apply .

Sedimentary basins form in areas where subsidence of the Earth’s crust occurs over an extended period of time. Basin Analysis is the conceptual study of the sedimentary successions that infill the resulting basins.  This unit investigates the structural, environmental and depositional processes that govern the transport and deposition of both clastic and carbonate sediments.  Attention is paid to the consequences of natural variability within a sedimentary system versus external controls imparted by factors such as variation in sea level.  It will discuss how these fundamental sedimentological processes plus diagenesis control the spatial and temporal variability of clastic and carbonate sedimentary successions in the stratigraphic record. As part of the unit, training in the in the logging of core is provided, a key skill for interpreting sub-surface datasets. Application of these skills and concepts provides a method of predicting the lateral and vertical extent of sedimentary facies in areas where data is sparse, and therefore a greater understanding of all elements of a sedimentary system in the sub-surface. The unit considers how the properties of these depositional elements influence the economic value of sedimentary deposits as potential reservoirs of hydrocarbons, water and geothermal fluids or through Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).

This course unit detail provides the framework for delivery in 20/21 and may be subject to change due to any additional Covid-19 impact.  Please see Blackboard / course unit related emails for any further updates.

Basin Analysis investigates the structural and environmental controls that govern the spatial and temporal variability of clastic and carbonate sedimentary systems.  The course aims to demonstrate how application of these concepts can be used as a method of predicting the lateral and vertical extent of sedimentary facies in areas where data is sparse, and therefore a greater understanding of all elements of a sedimentary system in the sub-surface. The course provides the theoretical background and practical skills required to understand the structure and evolution of sedimentary basins, together with an integrated understanding of the controls on basin fills to provide insight on the stratigraphic record.

On the successful completion of the course, students will be able to: 

ILO 1 Derive the structural style, subsidence history and sedimentary fill of the main types of sedimentary basin from typical datasets (developed, assessed)

ILO 2 Describe and classify carbonate and clastic sediments in outcrop, core and thin section (developed, assessed)

ILO 3 Demonstrate how both early and late diagenetic processes affect carbonate sediments (developed, assessed)

ILO 4 Use observations from a sedimentary succession to derive a facies scheme and evaluate the dynamics of the depositional environment (developed, assessed)

ILO 5 Distinguish the effects autocyclic and allocyclic controls have on the vertical and lateral variability of sediments deposited in clastic and carbonate environments (developed, assessed)

ILO 6 Derive GDE (Gross Depositional Environment) maps to honour interpretations gained from typical surface and subsurface datasets (developed, assessed)

ILO 7 Identify the hierarchical building blocks of sedimentary systems in order to predict the 3D distribution of sedimentary environments, facies and rock properties (developed, assessed)

ILO 8 Evaluate the source and effect of uncertainty associated with depositional and reservoir models 

This unit has 4 interlinked components: It begins by looking at basin frameworks and the controls on sedimentary systems, before examining clastic and carbonate systems. All components are taught through lecture and hands-on practical sessions to reinforce concepts. A key part of each component is drill core. Workshops teach the practicalities of professional standard core description using in-house samples and an excursion to the BGS core repository with assessments based on the data collected.
The Play Fairway Analysis group project provides students with the opportunity to apply the skills they have acquired to a large scale study composed of multiple sources of data. 
 

Oral (group) (25%)

Open Book assessment (carbonates & seq. strat) (50%) - Written individual feedback via Blackboard / email

Clastics: Report (individual) (25%) - Written individual feedback via Blackboard

Oral (group) (25%) - Group feedback via email

• Adams A.E. and Mackenzie W.S. (1998) A colour atlas of Carbonate Sediments and Rocks Under the Microscope Manson Publishing, 180p.
• Aplin A.C. (2000) Mineralogy of modern marine sediments: A geochemical framework. In Vaughan D.J. and Wogelius R.A. Eds. Environmental Mineralogy p. 125 - 172
• Bjorlykke, K. (2010) Petroleum Geoscience - From Sedimentary Environments to Rock Physics. Springer, 508p.
• Coe A.L. (2003) The Sedimentary Record of Sea-Level Change Cambridge University Press. 288p.
• Gluyas J and Swarbrick R (2004) Petroleum Geoscience. Blackwell Scientific, 359 p.
• Leeder M.R. Sedimentology, Process and Product. George Allen and Unwin, 344p.
• Miall, A.D., (2015) Stratigraphy: A Modern Synthesis, 433p.
• Nichols G.J. (2009) Sedimentology and Stratigraphy, 2nd Ed, Blackwell 432p.
• Tucker M.E. Wright V.P., (1990) Carbonate Sedimentology. Blackwell. 496p.
• Wignall P.B. (1994) Black Shales Blackwell, 127p.

Other Scheduled teaching and learning activities: Paper based practicals to reinforce classroom taught concepts. Visit to the BGS core store.