The two PhD students will join & present at the EGU General Assembly 2025. The oral presentations will be held in the Submarine Geomorphology session (GM8.1) on Thursday 1st of May. Morgan will present at 15:25, followed by Despina at 15:35. If you’re attending, swing by in room G1!
For more information: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/session/51769#Orals
On the 20th of March, the PhD students and Ruth Plets visited our Dutch colleague Prof. Dr. Frank Wesselingh in Naturalis (Leiden, The Netherlands). Here we discussed the shell-sampling results from the malacological analysis. The shells were sampled from cores taken in the Southern Bight (Axial Channel), Dogger Bank and Oyster Ground. The results will aid us in understanding the depositional environment of the sediments.
We also got a quick tour in the Naturalis museum as well as in the archives, more specifically the shells archives. We thank Prof. Dr. Frank Wesselingh for this wonderful, educational day!
On the 4th and 5th of March the BELQUA annual workshop and VLIZ Marine Science Day (VMSD) were held, respectively. On both days, results form the WALDO project were presented.
During the BELQUA workshop the results from geomorphological mapping the Southern Bight were presented, focusing on the formation/evolution of the Axial Channel, by an oral presentation.
This years VLIZ Marine Science Day was held at the VIVES Campus in Bruges. It was a special edition as this year is the 25th anniversary of VLIZ. Apart from the usual scientific oral and poster presentations, there was a unique workshop reflecting the past 25 years of VLIZ. Both PhD students had a poster presentation. Via the following link, you can find the book of abstracts: https://www.vliz.be/vmsd/en/book-abstracts.
From the 6th to the 9th of January, the two PhD students attended the QRA Annual Discussion Meeting, hosted by Newcastle University. This years theme being ‘Quaternary Insights: Linking the Past, Present and Future’. Many interesting oral sessions and poster sessions were held. And, both PhDs presented a poster on (preliminary) results.
Keynote presentations:
Fieldtrip:
Noses Point at Seaham by Dave Roberts, Bethan Davies and Seb Pitman
In the last few weeks, the PhD students have been busy sampling the cores taken in Dogger Bank, Oyster Ground and the Southern Bight for further analysis.
The first set of samples we took were for malacological analysis (study of molluscs). Half of the working halves of our cores were sampled. These sampled were dried, washed, sieved and dried again. The resulting shell samples will be brought to Leiden, where we will study them with Prof. Dr. Frank Wesselingh.
The other set of samples were taken for microfossil analysis, more specifically diatoms and pollen. These samples will be analyzed by dr. Tom Hill (PERCS) and dr. Michael Grant (University of Southampton), respectively.
Since our survey got cancelled, we decided to use this ‘free’ time to our advantage and go on a writing retreat in the week of 12-16 August. For five days we searched out the quiet, somewhere deep in West-Flanders, in a village called ‘Zonnebeke’. And on those five days we started to write. For the WALDO PhD students this meant coming up with paper ideas and trying to figure out the outline of our thesis. We used the pomodoro technique; writing in periods of 25 minutes. Looking back, we can say that it proved itself very useful! And hopefully, in a few months time, everyone will be able to see some first published results…
On Tuesday 2/05, we started with the XRF scanning of the cores at the NIOZ institute (Texel). With 1h30 for roughly one section (~1 m) at 10 mm resolution, we were able to scan five cores already!
However, we still have a few to go. After the weekend, we will try to finish all the cores. In the meantime, we will enjoy everything the island of Texel is offering!
From the 2nd to the 8th of May, we will be scanning our cores with the Avaatech XRF core scanner in the NIOZ institute, Texel (NL). We will be posting updates on our Instagram page throughout the week. Stay tuned!
On the 15-19th of April, the EGU 2024 conference took place in Vienna (Austria). Morgan, one of the PhD students on the WALDO-project, presented preliminary results from a study area in the North Axial Channel (Southern North Sea). Both reflection-seismic data and cores were shown in a poster presentation, where some nice discussions and great talks followed.
The coming summer months will be busy for the WALDO project: core analysis (XRF) at the NIOZ institute (Texel, The Netherlands) in the beginning of May; (preparation for) the third WALDO survey with the RV Belgica in August; the QRA symposium at the end of August. Stay tuned by following the blog on the website, and our Instagram/Facebook page!
In the weekend of 9-10/03, a total of 24 cores were scanned with the CT-scanner of the UZ Ghent hospital. Here are some pictures of the PhD students at work and an example of the incoming CT data.
