This summer a team led by Dr Oscar Branson, including myself and fellow PhD students Winnie Fang and Alice Ball, headed to Taiwan for five weeks. We were on a mission to catch and culture open ocean plankton (specifically foraminifera) and our aim was to understand how they build their shells.
Continue reading “A Foray into Foraminifera”
Annabel Hunt is a second year PhD student studying the evolution of the theropod palate in the Field Palaeobiology Research Group at the Department of Earth Sciences. Here, Annabel reports back on attending the 2023 Palaeontological Association Annual Meeting.
Continue reading “Palaeontological Association 2023 conference comes to Cambridge”
The Department recently launched its new Part II environmental geochemistry field projects as an alternative to the successful and long-standing mapping projects.
According to Ed Tipper, co-director of undergraduate teaching, “The decision reflects the diverse research areas of our teaching staff, combined with a growing student interest in pressing environmental issues. This year, 13 students enrolled in the new type of project, making it viable to develop a new field trip to train students ready for this environmental pathway.”
The following blog post is written by Tom Marquand, PhD student in the Department and demonstrator on the inaugural environmental geochemistry field trip to Provence, France.
Continue reading “Reporting on the inaugural environmental geochemistry field trip to Provence”
Dr Alex Liu joined the Department of Earth Sciences in 2016 and is an Associate Professor in Palaeobiology and a Fellow of Girton College. He reflects on his work with Erin Martin-Jones.
Continue reading “In Conversation with Alex Liu”
First days at a new school can be intimidating, and my first day coming to Cambridge’s Earth Sciences Department to begin my MPhil degree in Michaelmas term 2019 was especially so.
I had just moved overseas from America to a country I had never even visited before, and I didn’t know a single person. When I stepped inside, there was something that put me at ease: the proliferation of pride flag stickers all around the department. Immediately, I felt that this was a place where I would be accepted, and as I settled in and met more people over the next few weeks and months, I was quickly proven right.
Continue reading “Supporting our Department’s Queer community”
This joint project between the Department of Earth Sciences and British Antarctic Survey (BAS) aims to constrain estimates of if, how and when the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) retreated during the Last Interglacial (LIG), 130 to 115 thousand years ago.
Evidence suggests that sea level during the LIG peaked at between 6 and 9 metres higher than present, a range which necessitates at least some contribution from Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat, the WAIS being the most likely candidate. Antarctic temperatures during this time period were in line with projections for the year 2100. These figures warn of the potential for significant future sea level rise resulting from anthropogenic climate change.
Continue reading “An update on WACSWAIN: WArm Climate Stability of the West Antarctic during the last INterglacial”
Palaeontology isn’t all about adventuring into the desert to dig up rocks. Sometimes, the palaeontologists of the past managed to find so many fossil bones, they didn’t know what to do with them. These bones can lie forgotten in museum collection drawers for decades, until a PhD student comes along to study them.
Fortunately for me, some of the most commonly overlooked fossils are fragmentary, isolated bones belonging to tiny animals. As a palaeontologist who works on passerine birds, which are generally tiny (think robins and blue tits), I was very excited to go on my first museum trip to look at bird fossils. In December 2022, I visited several museums in southern Germany to poke through all the drawers that might contain some mystery bird bones.
Continue reading “Forgotten fossils: how museum collections can be a treasure trove”
4th Year Earth Scientist Ellie Austin reports on the GeoVarsity games
Perhaps spending your Saturday afternoon falling around in mud and losing football matches to people who refuse to refer to you as anything other than a “Tab” isn’t your cup of tea. But it must’ve been someone’s*, since the tradition of GeoVarsity football has been running almost every year (bar the pandemic) since 2006 (with the concept of GeoVarsity running back until the 1990s!).
GeoVarsity football began as a simple idea: invite some academics from ‘the other place’ round for a friendly game of football and see who has the best sporting ability (which is of course completely correlated to academic standing).
Continue reading “GeoVarsity competition back after 4 year hiatus”
