'Wüstenlack' als Indikator für vergangenes Klima in Western Australia

[karmaka]

'Wüstenlack' als Indikator für vergangenes Klima in Western Australia

Eine interessante Idee!  

Go southeast, young men !!!

Fieldwork in der Nullarbor Plain (Western Australia)  

Die University of Glasgow bietet ein PhD-Forschungsprojekt und Promotionsstipendium für europäische Studenten an.

Meteorites from the Australian outback: A new terrestrial climate proxy?

Supervisors: Martin Lee & Phil Bland (Imperial College London)

Projektinformationen: http://web2.ges.gla.ac.uk/%7Emlee/Meteorites%20from%20the%20Australian%20outback.pdf

Anmeldeinformationen:
http://www.gla.ac.uk/colleges/scienceengineering/graduateschool/prospectivestudents/essentialinformation/

http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/ges/research/postgraduate/   (Anmeldeschluss: 26.1.2012)

The aims of this project are to test the novel idea that meteorites can provide a detailed record of changes in the Earth’s climate. This climatic information is potentially stored within ‘desert varnish’, a finely laminated crust that forms on rock surfaces in arid regions. This idea will be tested by analysing varnished meteorites that have lain exposed on the Nullarbor Plain (Western Australia) for up to 40,000 years, during which time the region’s climate has changed significantly. The student will undertake fieldwork in western Australia, and study varnished meteorites in collections at the Western Australian Museum (Perth). Varnish microstratigraphies will be characterized by imaging varnish cross-sections using transmitted light, then the chemical and mineralogical ‘fingerprint’ of each layer will be determined by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray microanalysis, laser Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy.

This work will yield a temporally and spatially highly resolved matrix of varnish microstratigraphies, which will be cross-correlated using statistical techniques including time series analysis. In order to test this climate proxy, the dataset will be interrogated by asking questions including: (i) is there evidence for abrasion or non-deposition of layers? (ii) are varnish microstratigraphies consistent throughout the region? (iii) is information from the meteorites consistent with data from Western Australian lake levels and records from further afield (e.g. Antarctic ice cores)? If the meteorite varnish proxy passes these tests it will provide much new information on the climatic evolution of Western Australia, and will be ready to use in palaeoclimatic studies elsewhere.

Funding Notes:

This project is eligible for funding by several schemes within the School and University, and studentships are awarded by competitive interview. They are available only to UK and EU citizens. For application information contact the supervisors or apply via the website of the Glasgow University College of Science and Engineering (http://www.gla.ac.uk/colleges/scienceengineering/graduateschool). Application Deadline: 26 January, 2012.

 

Martin