After a substantial break from blogging due to a combination of laziness and being away on field trips I have something of a backlog of posts and photos to put up. The first batch of which are from our 3rd year field trip to Ardnamurchan.
The field trip consisted of 5 days of mapping the slopes of Ben Hiant as well as a day doing something of a guided tour of the peninsula as a whole. What follows are photos of some of the more interesting features we observed, as well as brief explanations of their geological context. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Ardnamurchan, Geology, Paleogene
On Saturday just past I popped over to Edinburgh for my once-every-two-or-so-months-sometimes-longer catch up with Jono. Since the weather was fairly nice, and it’s always good to do something a bit different beyond just get lunch or a coffee, we decided that we would go up Arthur’s Seat. Katie was also in town to visit Jono, so we all spent a rather pleasant afternoon scrambling up hills and eating excellent Curry. In fact I’d say that the Mosque Kitchen is actually one of the most important locations to visit on this excursion.
Tags: Carboniferous, Edinburgh, Geology, Jono, Quaternary
I’ve got a fair few field trips coming up in the next few months which I’ll probably put posts up for, so here’s a bit of a preview of what’s coming up in the year ahead. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Geology
Once again: This is not a post about geology, so if you’re picking this up in a geofeed feel free to ignore it.
I’m into my second fortnight of my fitness program, it’s still going pretty well. My diary and some other thoughts follow: Read the rest of this entry »
This is not a post about geology, so if you’re picking this up in a geofeed feel free to ignore it.
That said however, I’m doing this at least partly for reasons related to my course – so feel free to have a read if you’re interested.
AGU attendees! Just a quick note to encourage you to check out the poster session on the morning of Friday the 18th. Among others there will also be the poster which is the culmination of my project over the summer and my first piece of ‘proper’ published work. Details are below (cribbed shamelessly from the AGU website):
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| Stable carbon isotopes of zooplankton lipid components as a tool to differentiate between pelagic and ice algae as a food source for zooplankton in the Arctic Ocean. J. A. Bendle1; H. Moossen1; R. Jamieson1; A. Wold2; S. Falk-Peterson2 1. G.E.S., University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom. 2. Norwegian Polar Institute , Tromsø, Norway. |
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| Every summer in the Arctic, the ice cover melts and releases sea-ice algae into the surrounding waters. How important are these algae, consisting mostly of diatoms, as a major food source for zooplankton and higher trophic levels? The answer to this question is timely, given predictions for the loss of summer sea ice cover this century. We are investigating the use of compound specific carbon isotopes as a tool to differentiate between lipids found in zooplankton which feed on diatoms living in the open ocean and zooplankton which feed on diatoms derived from the ice. To this effect we analyse the carbon isotopic signature of the major fatty acids and alcohols and that of the major sterols collected during the Arctic ICE CHASER expedition aboard the RRV James Clark Ross in 2008. Twenty three zooplankton samples comprised of 11 different species were collected in four different depth intervals at three different sites around Svalbard. The sites had variable ice cover, from open water to solid ice. We analysed the lipid composition of the zooplankton samples with special emphasis on the fatty acids and fatty alcohols bound as esters. Esters are produced by zooplankton to function as an energy reservoir. Initial results such as the occurrence of Brassicasterol, 24 methylencholest 5 en-3β-ol and Desmosterol, high amounts of the C20:5ω3 fatty acid and high C16:1ω7/C16:0-fatty acid ratios suggest that diatoms are an important part of the zooplankton diet.
http://www.ges.gla.ac.uk:443/postgraduates/hmoossen |
Be sure to tell the bewildered looking German PhD student standing next to it that Bob says hi. That should baffle Heiko entertainingly.
Tags: Biomarkers, Geology, Summer Project, Zooplankton
So, another couple of weeks have gone by since the last field trip, so what time is it? Time for Another One.
Last Thursday the class (the entire honours class this time, not just Limnology Students [the few, the brave, the mighty]) headed back up to Loch Lomond to the hamlet of Balmaha. This tiny little village sits practically on top of the Highland Border Complex / Boundary Fault, making it our third visit to this Terrane Boundary (the previous being Arran and Stonehaven). Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Devonian, Geology, Loch Lomond
I still think they should call it Lochnology, but never mind…
One of my more work-intensive third year option courses this year is Limnology. The course is just wrapping up just now and ends with a field trip to the SCENE facility at Loch Lomond, so yesterday we all got to make a nice little trip. We got extremely lucky with the weather, turning what could have been a horrible experience into a delightful day out in the countryside. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Geology, Limnology, Loch Lomond
Once again, I’ve left things rather a long time between posts. Mostly due to travelling over a thousand miles over the last couple of weeks, but also getting back to work as an Apple Campus Rep now that university is starting back up.
So here’s what I’ve been up to:
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Apple, Borders, Geology, NI, Summer Project
About 3 weeks ago now I took another trip down to the Borders (mostly because I had a dentist appointment, and am still registered down there). In any case, while I was there I figured I might as well spend the last few sunny days of the summer out in the field.
Originally the plan was for Emma and Hazel to drive down, pick me up and then head on down to the coast. However, Hazel got stuck working so Emma got the bus down, and we prevailed upon my father to drive us around.
So we decided to drive down to the beach at Scremerston, a stretch of coast in the North-East of England just south of Berwick. It’s a stretch of Carboniferous Limestones, Shales, Sandstones and some coal layers. The palaeoenvironment is basically that of a coast line; with remnants of Corals, Crinoids and Brachiopods which lived in shallow waters as well as coal swamps on land. There’s quite a lot of folding evident along the beach as well, some of which is visible on Google Maps.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Borders, Carboniferous, Geology