BOSCORF lab experience for UCAS day applicants to OES

 

This year BOSCORF is participating in a new format of UCAS experience days in association with the Geology undergraduate programmes at the University of Southampton. Students who have selected Southampton as one of their five final choices have been offored the opportunity for a hands-on experience day at the National Oceanography Centre. BOSCORF is hosting one of the lab based sessions on each of the days, and students applying for the Geology based course take part in a session using a recently collected core from the Nordic Seas.

 

The first of these sessions ran on the 28th january, 2017 and 37 students took part. The session highlights some of the ongoing research of the Arctic Landslide Tsunami Project, and the cores collected as part of the 2014 project cruise. The students are given a partial dataset and asked to work out the age of two large turbidite deposits. One of these deposits was generated by the 8.17 ka BP Storegga Landslide that occurred offshore Norway, and generated a devastating tsunami that was 5 m high when it hit the UK. The older deposit has been recently dated at BOSCORF, and students put together an age depth model for the core, and discuss the implications of their results. Within the session, the potential options for tsunami mitigation are discussed, and students are introduced to a range of lab techniques such as picking forams and identifying tephra grains.

 

 

 

BOSCORF staff Millie Watts and Lewis Bailey were assisted by two current MGeol students who are completing their masters projects in BOSCORF (Mike Sims and Dom Lee Dade), both of whom have recently been awarded the 14C Chrono award from the Quaternary Research Association to date their cores from the Lofoten Basin. Throughout the session numerous current students are on hand to assist with the task and discuss the Geology programmes offered at Southampton.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Future Dates: 11th February and 11th March

 

If you would like to arrange an outreach visit for a school or college, or a visit to the core collection for a university course or private group, please email boscorf@noc.ac.uk with some details and we will arrange a bespoke visit to meet your needs. BOSCORF holds over 2500 sediment cores detailing geohazards, climate change, pollution and carbonate mounds, we can arrange a tour of the facility and a session on core analysis at your request.