Departmental Newsletter Autumn 2024

Research: Mount Everest is growing

The Arun river is pushing up the Mount Everest's peak by as much as 2 millimetres a year.

Research: Project ESCAPE

New interdisciplinary research project investigating how to prepare for volcanic eruption.

Research: The “Snowball Earth” event

Most of the world lost this transition because of the ancient glacial erosion, but in Scotland, it miraculously remains visible.

Outreach: Hidden Worlds of microfossils

The event invited participants of all ages to dive into the unseen wonders of microfossils.

Learning: Future Relics Project

The project explores links between forces shaping buildings and Earth's surface.

Careers: Events, internships and networking

The events were a success, offering students career insights and internships.

Update from Professor Lidunka Vočadlo, Head of Department.

The holiday season is fast approaching as we enter the last week of the Autumn term. It’s been a wet one but as I write this I can hear lots of laughter and chat coming from the first floor hub space where our undergraduates are presenting posters about research carried out by professors in the Department as part of their Meet your Researcher presentations. I noticed the excellent poster on the Earth’s core when I was looking at them earlier; however the professor photograph used was one from…ahem….20+ years ago! Completely unrecognisable!

Since the Spring newsletter a lot has happened, as usual. We have several new members of staff: Rosie Willatt, our new lecturer in climate science who started in September; Lavenia Ratnarajah (Lavy), another lecture in climate science starting next term; Alex Lipp, a lecturer in environmental science starting in January; Steve Hicks, a lecturer in environmental seismology, already here but formally coming on staff next year; John Browning, an associate professor in volcanology starting in the third term; Stephen Pates, a joint lecturer with GEE in invertebrate palaeobiology starting in January; Adam Cotterill, a lecturer in volcanology with us for a year, and Simon Turner, teaching this term on our environmental geoscience module. On the Professional Services side, we have Rebecca Crossland leading the Geobus while Amy is on maternity leave, and Zarus Cenac working on our new NERC DLA (see below).

We said goodbye to Emma Nicholson, who is now the Dean of Graduate Research at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, and Dominic Papineau who is now a senior research scientist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

We have had considerable success in the Department since the last newsletter with the following triumphs:

• Peter Clift has been elected Fellow of the AGU 2024.
•  Andy Thomson has been awarded the 2024 Leverhulme Prize which is given to “extraordinary researchers across a range of disciplines” “whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future careers are exceptionally promising”. 
• Tom Mitchell has won an outstanding £16M for the TREES DLA (Doctoral Landscape Award; £8M NERC + £8M matched). This award secures PhD studentships in environmental science for many years to come.
• In terms of research there have been a number of excellent news stories over the past few months that have had very widespread media coverage.  These include a new study on snowball Earth led by Professor Graham Shields and PhD student Elias Rugen; a climate-change-caused landslide which caused the Earth to vibrate - involving Dr Steven Hicks; and how a river has helped Everest to become so tall - a study by PhD student Adam Smith and Dr Matthew Fox; a publication by Frances Cooper in Nature Geoscience on the link between porphyry copper deposits in regions of thickened continental crust and shallow slab subduction; and throw an Everest-sized impactor at the Earth and you’d think that would have a climatic effect – but no! See Bridget Wade and MSc Geoscience student Natalie Cheung’s paper in Nature Communications Earth & Environment - a project using carbon and oxygen isotopes in multiple species of planktonic and benthic foraminifera to reveal no isotopic anomalies as a result of these impacts. 
• Rosie Willatt has formed a new cross-UCL climate research group called CIREN (Climate Science Research Network) which seeks to get people networking and building contacts throughout UCL’s climate research community.
• We have a new Earth Resources Centre led by Katie McFall, Frances Cooper and Tom Mitchell backed up by their successful collaborative NERC TARGET CDT (Centre for Doctoral Training).
• We also have another collaborative CDT, now called DFA (Doctoral Focus Award) UNRISK with Michel Tsamados on the team. This DFA is focussed on understanding uncertainty to reduce climate risks.

So there we have six months in our Department! And I haven’t even mentioned the afternoon of Lego or the fantastic Alumni Dinner! A massive thank you to all the staff and students who help make this Department so vibrant. And such hard work deserves a much needed break! Happy Christmas!

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