Dr Frances Cooper BHP Billiton Lecturer PhD (2008) “Exhumation of the northern Snake Range metamorphic core complex, Nevada” 1) The Twitter challenge: Describe your PhD in 140 characters (if you can remember it) I tested different models for how the metamorphic rocks of the northern Snake Range were brought to the surface from the middle-lower crust.
Fieldwork
What’s up in Bolivia?
James Hickey is a PhD student in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. A geophysicist and volcanologist by trade, his PhD project is focussed on attempting to place constraints on volcanic unrest using integrated geodetic modelling. To many, Bolivia is just an unassuming landlocked country in South America, perhaps most famous for its coca tea obsession and ‘gap yah’ alpaca wo ...[Read More]
An ode to metamorphism
On finding out my ‘profession’, there’s one fact that people proudly announce to me on a regular basis: “I know the three rock types: sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic!”. What usually emerges from deeper probing is that most people are comfortable with the concept of sediments and magma, but metamorphism is a bit of an enigma. Like the mysterious stranger, lurking ...[Read More]
Science snap (7): Thrusting under our noses
As Earth Science researchers, we are extremely fortunate that fieldwork often necessitates trips to exotic and far-flung places. But sometimes we are guilty of ignoring the riches right on our doorstep. In Bristol (UK), perhaps our greatest geological asset is the Avon Gorge. At the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, torrents of icy meltwater scoured out a 2.5km long gouge through a series of Devoni ...[Read More]
The Cascades: A carbonate geochemist’s point of view
KT Cooper is a PhD student in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. A carbonate geochemist by training, she is currently on a three-month secondment to Houston, Texas, USA working with Exxon Mobil. Recently, I was lucky enough to visit a fellow Bristol Earth Sciences PhD student in Vancouver, Washington for a weekend of volcano-spotting (and hiking) in the Cascades. As a non-v ...[Read More]