Geography staff collected samples from moraines and boulders in the Maritime Alps that will be analysed for cosmogenic isotope content to shed light on the climatic conditions during the last important period of climate change
Geography staff members Matteo Spagnolo and Brice Rea, along with Aberdeen PhD student Lucy Ashpitel, conducted fieldwork in the beautiful Maritime Alps, with colleagues from the universities of Pisa and Padova. The researchers successfully identified a number of likely Last Glacial Maximum (some 22,000 years ago) deposits and sampled 17 boulders from 3 moraines (in addition to enjoying the lovely sun and local cheese and chestnuts). The rock samples will be analysed at ETH (Zurich) for their cosmogenic isotope content, a technique used to obtain the age of the moraines. The work will shed light on the climatic conditions during this important period of climate change that affected the 'recent' past of our planet.