Hello!

Hello! My name is Matt, I’m a first-year PhD student here at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton and am looking forward to being one of the facilitators for the ‘Exploring our Oceans’ MOOC.

During my time in Southampton I’m studying the climate of North Africa and how it has varied over the last few million years. You may be wondering how this relates to the oceans… it’s all to do with dust! Sediments at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean can provide an excellent record of dust being blown off North Africa in the past.

I can then date and study these dust records and make inferences about North African climate for that time. But more about that another time, as this post is just an introduction!

 

Plotting a course to Southampton:

The Earth system has many different parts, from the continents, ice sheets and the biosphere to the atmosphere and, of course, the oceans! How these fit together and interact to result in the world we live in today has always intrigued me. To learn more about the mechanics of these systems I took Geography, Chemistry and Maths at A-Level before studying Geology at the University of Leicester. It was at Leicester that I discovered my fascination for past climates. There are hundreds of millions of years of oceans, atmospheres and continents that are all vastly different compared to today’s and uncovering this smorgasbord of climates is what I find fascinating.  In my final year at Leicester I studied the evolution of Irish Sea stratification and was, ultimately, hooked.  After taking a year out (for various reasons) I landed a PhD in Southampton and here I am!

I hope you also discover something that captures your imagination while you explore the oceans on this course!