Reconstructing Antarctic Ice Sheet and Southern Ocean changes from marine sediments.
Research Area
I am a geologist studying marine sedimentary records from the Antarctic continental margin and the Southern Ocean. The overarching aim of my research is to understand how and why the Antarctic Ice Sheet and the surrounding Southern Ocean have changed on timescales of decades to millions of years. A scientific focus of my work over recent years has been the sensitivity and vulnerability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The knowledge acquired by my research helps to test and improve computer-model based predictions of future ice-sheet changes in a warming world and associated global sea-level rise.
Using a variety of analytical methods, I measure a whole suite of proxy data on sediment cores recovered from the Antarctic region on sea-going expeditions. These data include physical properties, sedimentary parameters, geochemical and mineralogical composition, and microfossil content of the sediments. The core material I am investigating is stored at BAS, in Southampton and in core repositories in Germany and the U.S.A. The network of my collaborators includes colleagues from universities and research institutes both in the UK and from around the world.
Project Interests
Reconstructing glacial-interglacial ice sheet dynamics by investigating source-to-sink detrital sediment transport on the Antarctic continental margin (with Prof. Alex Piotrowski, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge).
