A rather remote reunion聽
Plans are afoot for a rather remote Univ Earth Science reunion later this summer.聽In August Univ OM Dr Sam Weatherley (2005, Earth Sciences) will be leading a seven-week-long scientific expedition to a remote region in East Greenland in the company of two other Univ alumni, Dr Brendan Dyck (2012, Earth Sciences) and Victoria Honour (2010, Earth Sciences).
In total the team will be six strong, involving four from Cambridge (including Victoria and Brendan), one from the University of Exeter, and Sam himself, a research scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. Sam comments on the expedition: 鈥楽ince leaving Univ our research paths have converged, and a rather fortuitous series of events involving successful funding applications and good timing mean that we鈥檒l be working with each other in the field this summer.鈥�
The team will visit the Skaergaard intrusion (in case you鈥檙e curious, you can see how remote it is on聽), where they will collect samples and field data that will enable them to tackle some key questions in their field of igneous petrology.聽 Additionally, the expedition will provide Victoria with some important samples for her own on-going PhD project.聽鈥楾he plan in brief,鈥� says Sam, 鈥榠s that we鈥檒l be dropped off at Skaergaard by ship, work completely unsupported for the field period and then be picked up by ship again at the end of the season.聽 Needless to say, this is quite an adventurous expedition; the location, remoteness (it’s about 400 km to the nearest settlement, provided that the weather and ice conditions are good) 聽and length of time we’ll be there for mean that the expedition will be a big challenge for the participants too.鈥�
Skaergaard is an incredibly special place for igneous petrologists – and particularly so for Univites – to visit. The reason for this is twofold as Sam explains: 鈥楾he intrusion was visited by Lawrence Wager in 1935-1936, and Wager later became a fellow at Univ in 1950.聽 Second, the work that Wager did on Skaergaard is probably one of the most significant contributions to igneous petrology;聽the results of his work on Skaergaard provide many of the foundations and paradigms of our field, and as such, Skaergaard has to be the holy grail of field sites for igneous petrologists to visit.鈥�
Univ wishes the intrepid team well for their upcoming adventures and will be reporting on their progress in due course.
Photo Credit:聽Prof. Kent Brooks
Published: 1 June 2017
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