Earth Sciences

AIMS

To introduce key principles of oceanography, the proxies used for palaeoceanography and the history and evolution of Cretaceous to Recent oceans, through case studies.

OUTCOMES

Knowledge of:

• temperature and productivity of the oceans;
• controls on biogenic sedimentation;
• the development and history of oceanic circulation;
• understanding of analytical techniques used to obtain that knowledge.

CONTENT

Ocean basin structure and marine sediments; General circulation of the oceans; wind driven and thermohaline circulation; Primary production, nutrients and the marine carbon cycle; Life in the oceans; Micropalaeontological and geochemical proxies for temperature, productivity, weathering and circulation; Pre-Cenozoic palaeoceanography, including 'oceanic anoxic events'; K/T boundary; Early Cenozoic warmth and hyperthermals; the transition from the Greenhouse to the Icehouse world,'; fluctuations in climate and ice volume in the Neogene; the glacial world.