Robert Hall

Professor · Royal Holloway, University of London · company speakers →

Professor Robert Hall began work on Southeast Asian geology in 1984, following 15 years of field studies in the Middle East (Turkey, Greece, Iran) Tethyan Belt. His first expedition took him to Halmahera, where he worked with Mike Audley-Charles and colleagues from GRDC Bandung. Despite an initial experience of fieldwork in one of the wettest ‘dry-seasons’ for years, Robert kept returning to Southeast Asia throughout the 1980s and 90s for a series of expeditions to the North Moluccas and nearby islands. In 1994 he became the Director of the Southeast Asia Research Group (SEARG) at Royal Holloway, University of London. SEARG has always been committed to field-based research, with major expeditions and projects in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, and the Philippines. Almost 40 years of activity means that SEARG is an internationally pre-eminent group known for its work in the region. The group is funded predominantly through a series of three-year industry consortia. This funding supports the research within the group and enables international collaborations. Of particular importance are successful collaborations with academic institutions and government agencies in SE Asia, for example, in recent years SEARG have worked closely with the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) in Indonesia, and have funded numerous Masters and PhD students from Indonesia and Malaysia. SEARG research has always been varied, from the well-known and widely-used tectonic reconstructions of SE Asia and the SW Pacific which have implications for biogeography, ocean circulation, global climate, sediment supply, magmatism, and mineralisation, to current work on sediment provenance and thermochronology. Work of particular note includes: mantle structure and tectonic models with Professor Wim Spakman (Utrecht University); reconstructions and dating with Professor Gordon Lister (Australian National University); geochronological work with Professor Andy Carter (Birkbeck London) and biostratigraphic dating with Professor Marcelle Boudagher-Fadel (University College London). SEARG is internationally known, to those working in SE Asia and also widely to those working outside the region, including geologists, oceanographers, environmental scientists, and biogeographers. In addition to scientific research, SEARG has also been involved in the publication of general interest books, and television programmes about SE Asia.

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