Peter Spooner, a 1st year PhD student in the School of Earth Sciences, is studying deep sea corals in the Southern Ocean. He came to talk to us about engaging with schools, both now and during the research cruise he’ll be taking later on this year (it’s a tough life doing a PhD!).
If you look at the bottom of the ocean, it might not seem very interesting; but it can actually tell you a great deal about the past, from ocean circulation to changes in climate. This is often done by studying sediment cores – tubes of sediment layers that can give you a snapshot of the ocean at the time. But in some places, such as the Drake Passage between the Antarctic Peninsula and South America (which Peter is studying), the strong currents sweep away the sediment so you have to look at deep sea corals instead. These corals exist all over the world at depths up to several thousand metres and their age can readily be determined using the radioactive isotopes of uranium and thorium. However, it’s a time-consuming process, with 50 samples taking up to seven weeks – not ideal if you have a collection of 20,000 corals, as the University does. So Peter has been developing a technique that enables him to do the same number of samples in just 3 days. Once he knows the ages of the corals he can start to investigate the temperature of this part of the ocean and how this relates to historical climate changes.
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