Projects advertised for 2021/22
The ocean is absorbing much of the heat and carbon dioxide emissions related to human caused climate change, but the long-term impacts on heat transport, carbon cycling and deep ocean circulation are poorly understood. Looking at past warm periods known as “Super-Interglacials” where global temperatures are estimated to be 0.5 to 1.5°C warmer than today may provide insight into how the ocean accommodates heat and carbon. This project will use a suite of locations in the Atlantic and/or Pacific to characterize and map intermediate and deep water masses and ocean circulation.
Primary Supervisor: Heather Ford, Secondary Supervisor: Stuart Grieve. For further details, please contact Heather Ford (h.ford@qmul.ac.uk)
Glaciers and ice sheets are important microbe-dominated ecosystems, that are undergoing rapid changes due to climate change. Glacier surfaces are dynamic ecosystems comprising bacteria and algae, that drive carbon and nutrient cycling, and cause ice darkening - thus accelerating ice melt. Progress in numerical modelling will be critical to advance the current understanding of microbial and biogeochemical processes occurring on glacier and ice sheet surfaces – yet currently, an ecological model for ice surfaces does not exist. This desk-based project involves developing and calibrating a process-based ecological model for glacier surface habitats, to investigate feedbacks between microbial activity and nutrient cycling. The project would suit a numerate student with skills and interest in numerical modelling, polar microbiology, and biogeochemical cycles.
For further details, please contact James Bradley (james.bradley@qmul.ac.uk)
Earth’s deep subsurface contains a vast proportion of the planet’s microbial life and organic carbon. In deep, energy-limited settings, microorganisms persist over long timescales with very slow metabolisms – constituting an important analogue to life beyond Earth. Numerical models are pivotal in addressing how microorganisms survive and drive the transformations of carbon and other elements. This desk-based project provides an opportunity to work at the frontier of deep biosphere science by developing a microbial-biogeochemical model for the terrestrial or marine subsurface, and using this model to investigate the interplay between microbial and geochemical processes. The project would suit a numerate student with an interest in numerical modelling, biogeochemical cycling, astrobiology, and life in extreme environments.
A vital aspect of research into planetary surface processes is the ability to quantitatively relate the present-day morphology of landforms to the forces which are acting upon them. One of the most successful examples of this principle is the inversion of river profiles to reconstruct the history of forcings operating on a landscape. However, dataset resolution has been shown to be a limiting factor in the topographic analysis of river channels, as has our ability to accurately map channel heads. Unlike topographic analysis, topological analysis does not require precise knowledge of channel head locations, and is insensitive to dataset resolution. This project will combine state of the art topographic analysis with novel network topology metrics to quantify the influence of climate, lithology and tectonics on the evolution of river networks and their landscapes.
Primary supervisor: Stuart Grieve, second supervisor: Alex Henshaw. For further details, please contact Stuart Grieve (s.grieve@qmul.ac.uk)
The morphology of the surface of the Earth records a history of the processes which act upon it. Geomorphologists have well established techniques to reconstruct complex tectonic histories through the analysis of river channel morphology. On geologic timescales, rivers adjust rapidly to tectonics, erasing the record of past tectonic processes. However, hillslopes have been shown to adjust to forcings more slowly, potentially providing a topographic record of tectonics that persist long after the channel signal is destroyed by erosion. This project will explore the current state of the art in topographic analysis and use well established tools to reconstruct tectonic records recorded in hillslope as well as channel morphology, for a range of locations, which can be selected based on student interest.
The last decade has seen an explosion in the quality and availability of Earth observation data, providing opportunities to study river processes at spatial and temporal scales that would previously have proved impossible. However, making sense of river morphodynamics in this era of big data presents many research challenges. This project will focus on the development of automated channel network extraction methods for use with multispectral satellite and synthetic aperture radar data within the Google Earth Engine cloud computing platform. Outputs will be used to explore behavioural characteristics of braided rivers in relation to physical controls. Applications from students with backgrounds in fluvial geomorphology, hydraulic engineering, computer science and remote sensing welcomed.
Primary supervisor: Alex Henshaw, Second Supervisor: Stuart Grieve. For further details, please contact Alex Henshaw (a.henshaw@qmul.ac.uk)
Rewilding is a conservation approach focusing on landscape-scale restoration of ecosystems and reinstating natural processes. It can include, but is not limited to, the reintroduction of missing keystone species (cattle, ponies, deer, pigs, beavers). These ecosystem engineering animals can generate landscape-scale vegetation changes as well as directly altering soil structure, for example through rootling and trampling. There is potential for different degrees of ‘wildness’ from a more hand-off approach to land management through to allowing nature to take over. It is likely that we begin to see many different approaches across this gradient with Natural Flood Management (NFM) being a major driver. This project will use novel remote sensing methods to explore vegetation and landscape dynamics in different rewilding settings, informing the development of decision-support tools for modelling rewilding impacts in the context of NFM. Potential for collaboration with the National Trust as a project partner.
Primary supervisor: Gemma Harvey, Second Supervisor: Alex Henshaw. For further details, please contact Gemma Harvey (g.l.harvey@qmul.ac.uk)