Manuel Vieira,^1,* Salih Mahdi,^2,** Peter Osterloff<sup>3,***

1</sup>aShell UK Ltd., 1 Altens Farm Road, Nigg, Aberdeen, AB12 3FY, UK
²bRPS Ichron Ltd., Century House, Gadbrook Business Centre, Northwich, Cheshire, CW9 7TL, UK
³cShell UK Ltd., 40 Bank Street, London, E14 5NR, UK

^*Manuel Vieira is currently based in Aberdeen, since 2013, working as a stratigrapher for Shell UK supporting the North Sea activities. He was an undergraduate at Minho University (Portugal), and received a PhD degree in Pliocene palynology in 2008. Before joining Shell, he worked as a consultant stratigrapher/palynologist with Ichron Ltd. He was involved in projects from the North Sea (UK and Norway), Faroes, West of Shetlands, India, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Morocco, Falklands and Greenland. He is experienced at wellsite on several wells (Cenozoic and Mesozoic sequences).
^**Salih Mahdi is a principal palynologist/stratigrapher with RPS ichron, based in Northwich Cheshire. He studied geology at the University of Baghdad, Iraq, before undertaking research on the Carboniferous palynology of northern England at the University of Aston in Birmingham, for which he was awarded a PhD degree in 1982. In 1986 he joined Gearhart Geoconsultant to work on Mesozoic and Paleogene successions in the North Sea. He was soon called upon to work on the Carboniferous palynology of the southern North Sea (UK and Dutch sectors) Irish Sea and onshore UK. Since then he enquired extensive biostratigraphical experience of Paleogene, Mesozoic and Palaeozoic sequences of Northwest Europe. He also has extensive biostratigraphic experience of Upper Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Tertiary sequences of Brazil, Falkland, North and West Africa, Middle East (Iraq, Qatar, Oman and Syria), India and Pakistan.
^***Peter Osterloff is currently located with Shell UK Ltd. in London where he is involved in supporting global exploration basin screening and maturation activities, along with routine exploration and development programs. He received an undergraduate degree from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, followed by a PhD degree at the University of Sheffield studying carboniferous palynology.He joined Shell in 1982, working in the North Sea and West of Shetlands, on Palaeozoic to Tertiary systems, followed by assignments in Oman, Malaysia, Nigeria and Aberdeen covering the stratigraphic column from proterozoic through to recent sediments.