We spent three weeks off the North-West African coast, just south of the Canary Islands.

The main objective of the cruise was to test the piston coring system and train the crew in how to use the equipment to get ready for a full research cruise early in 2018 in the South Atlantic.

A piston corer is a device that retrieves sediment cores (essentially long tubes of mud!) from the bottom of the ocean.

I was on board, along with Steve Bohaty a Scientist and Lecturer at NOCS, to help with handling the cores once they were on deck, i.e. cutting, labelling, recording and storing them.

Sediment cores are Invaluable for palaeoceanography research. In the sediment we can identify layers representing further and further back in time. By measuring various different properties of the sediments at these times (such as what type of tiny animals were living in the sediment, the type of sediment itself or concentrations of different elements) we can build up a picture of what the oceans and climate were doing in the past.  The ultimate goal is to understand why changes occurred in the past in order to understand how they might happen in the future.

It’s not all work on board however, one evening we had a bbq out on deck, with a slightly different view than a back garden!

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With predicted changes in future climate it is important to understand how these may impact upon Africa. For example, it is possible that slower Atlantic Ocean circulation will lead to reduced rainfall in North Africa.  This could cause extended periods of drought, which could, in turn, lead to increased migration out of the region.  On a lighter note, the timing of climatic changes in North Africa is likely to have had an impact on when early humans migrated out of Africa!

When I say North Africa you’re probably imagining an image like the one below, a classic Saharan scene with sand dunes and not a lot of water.

However, it has not always been so dry.  At times in the past, North Africa has supported much more vegetation with grasses, shrubs, rivers and even lakes! It may have looked something more like this…

North African climate is sensitive to changing Atlantic Ocean circulation which, in turn, is affected by the rate and nature of the saline water flowing out of the Mediterranean Sea.

By studying deep sediments off the coast of North-West Africa and the South-West Iberian margin I can tie together changes in Mediterranean outflow and Atlantic Ocean circulation with changes in African climate.

I will be using a combination of magnetic and geochemical methods. By applying different magnetic fields to samples of sediment and measuring the resultant changes in its magnetic properties I can identify particular minerals as well as changes in grain size, both of which can help to determine past climate changes.  Measuring the proportions of the different chemical elements in the sediment will also help with this.

The project should help us to determine how, when and why North African climate has switched between these wet and dry intervals in the past.

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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!

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