WIGL News & Events - 2013
ARC Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) grant to WIGL – November 2013
Anthony Dosseto, Allan Chivas, Colin Murray-Wallace, Maxime Aubert, Allen Nutman, and 18 CIs and PIs from 7 different institutions were awarded a $360k LIEF grant to set up a laser ablation multi-collector ICPMS in WIGL.
Project Summary:
Innovative isotopic techniques to study the response of soil and water resources to modern and past climate change: The emergence of innovative isotopic tools has provided unprecedented opportunities to improve our understanding of the processes that shape the earth's resources and environment. The plasma-source mass spectrometer will be dedicated to applying these techniques to earth surface processes, and establishing unique capabilities to decipher how soil and water resources respond to modern and past climate change in Australia.
See the funding outcomes here: http://arc.gov.au/ncgp/lief/lief_outcomes.html
ARC Discovery grant to WIGL – November 2013
Anthony Dosseto, Allan Chivas, Nathalive Vigier (CRPG, France), Damien Lemarchand (Université de Strasbourg, France) were awarded a $240k Discovery grant for the project entitled “Water and soil resource response to past global environmental changes”.
Project summary:
The abundance and distribution of Earth's water and soil resources are strongly influenced by the spatial and temporal variability of climatic parameters. Thus, there is a need to understand how climate change, whether of natural causes or induced by human activity, impacts fluvial and soil systems. This project will use novel isotopic techniques to study the links between climate variability, chemical weathering, which produces soil, and sediment transport, which affects fluvial systems and water resources. The composition of stable lithium, boron and calcium isotopes, and of radioactive uranium-series isotopes in sedimentary records will shed new light on our understanding of these processes.
See the funding outcomes here: http://arc.gov.au/ncgp/dp/dp_outcomes.html
Fieldwork in the snowy mountains - November 2013
Sam Marx, Anthony Dosseto, Tibi Codilean, Reka Fulop and Nicola Stromsoe (University of Queensland) have undertaken field work in the Snowy Mountains. The aim was to sample weathering profiles for uranium-isotopes in order to quantify how fast these profiles form. Stream sediments were also collected for cosmogenic isotopes to constrain catchment-wide erosion rates.
Snowy Mountains
Dead Trees
Tibi and Nicola sampling Guthega Creek sediments for cosmogenic isotopes
Sampled weathering profile at Island Bend
New Lecturer joins WIGL from Postdam Germany - October 2013
Dr Alexandru “Tibi” Codilean is the new lecturer in the School of Earth & Environmental Sciences and has accepted to join WIGL.
His core research interests lie in the area of tectonic geomorphology and long-term landscape evolution. He is particularly interested in studying the interactions between surface processes, tectonics, and climate over a wide range of timescales, using a combination of cutting edge cosmogenic nuclide-based analytical techniques and numerical modelling of landscape evolution. Method development aimed at expanding the applicability of cosmogenic nuclides in Earth surface processes studies is intrinsic to his work.
Fieldwork in the Flinders Range and Lake Callabonna – July 2013
Henne May and Anthony Dosseto were in the Flinders Range to collect cave carbonates for U-Th dating. The aim is to establish when semi-arid conditions became prevalent in this region.
They then join Tim Cohen and Sam Marx at Lake Callabona. Drilling was done using a percussion corer to recover sediments from the lake. These sediments will help us uncover the palaeo-climate history of the region.
Mount Chambers
Stick-nest rat midden in Mount Chambers. Rat’s urine is fossilised into amber… gross, but useful to radiocarbon date midden (see McCarthy and Head, 2001)
Petroglyphs
Mount Chambers view from Lookout Cave
Carbonate precipitation in Lookout Cave
Luke's Cave
High-tech sampling
The usual field companions
Nice-looking palaeo-channel
Travertine
Flinders Range landscape
Waterfall Gorge - some serious bedrock channel meandering!
By the campfire
New friend
Check this palaeo-desert pavement! (dark reddish cobbles in the middle)
No comment!
Flinders Range skyline
Lake Callabonna
The dingo’s fence
Another day in the office. Dragging the drilling equipment over the lake
Gypsum field
Wild dingo
Fieldwork in Sulawesi - June 2013
Max Aubert (now Griffith University), Anthony Dosseto and Adam Brumm (now Griffith University) were in Sulawesi to undertake archaeological fieldwork. Objectives of this project cannot be disclosed here, but you will surely read about it soon ;-)
The Maros karst
Field camp
We found ourselves face-to-face with a supercharged spider
Bear cuscus, a marsupial species endemic of Sulawesi and other Indonesian islands
