Kate’s 4-month secondment at NGI, Oslo

Kate Heerema (ESR5) | @ NGI Oslo, Norway (March - June 2019)

From March to the end of June, I spent my time not in Durham, but in Oslo for my secondment at NGI. Over the 4 months, I tried to learn as much as possible about numerical modelling. Numerical modelling can be described as follows: using a variety of equations that form a “rulebook”, and given some standard input values, the computer calculates what the likely scenario is. However, there are usually some unknown variables, simply because we don’t have the data and rely mostly on theory! The system can be quite sensitive to these unknowns – a tiny change of the value can have major consequences for the model output. 

Because I was starting from scratch, there was a steep learning curve for me to get even slightly familiar with numerical modelling. Eventually, we set up a model using open source software for computational fluid dynamics – OpenFOAM. With lots of help from Matti Rauter (ESR14), we managed to set up a basic model after 14 days. Although this was far from bug-free, it did enable me to gain an understanding in numerical modelling – including its inherent and continuous debugging. We have now managed to set it up in such a state that I can continue with the model implementation when I get back to Durham. 

To me, this 4-month secondment embodied everything possible within SLATE; where we combine knowledge and expertise and try to build bridges between different fields. This is a unique opportunity to combine the expertise of scientists that are usually very segregated. My background is in direct, in-field measurements of turbidity currents. At NGI, the main task was to see if we could translate these measurements into a model that can predict the patterns we see in real-life. Ultimately, the goal is to set up a model that can reproduce real-life turbidity currents, and thereby work towards mitigating risks associated with these hazardous events. However, in order for that to work, the physics and variables need to be accurate enough to capture the complicated reality. In order to do so, we need in-depth knowledge of both the numerical model and the geology.

My secondment at NGI has been a great way to integrate into Norwegian life. All the people I have worked with over the last few months at the institute have been incredibly welcoming. I also got amazing insights into Norwegian culture (e.g. Vaffel fredag, “Waffle Friday”, is simply a great tradition!), and learnt that it actually does matter which wax you put under your cross-country skis… I am especially thankful to the colleagues that showed me the best bits of Oslo (and surroundings)!

My four months in Oslo also provided me with the opportunity to explore Norway. Oslo is an amazing city – in many ways quite different to Durham. Both, however, have a feel for the outdoors, with close proximity to great nature. Here in Oslo, I was able to go cross-country skiing just by taking the metro; outdoor climbing with a view over the city; and swimming in the Oslo fjord (both in winter and summer). The long weekends in spring made it possible to go tour skiing near Gaustatoppen over Easter, and hiking in Rondane over “Pinse”. I finished off my secondment with a couple of weeks of holiday in Tafjordfjella and Åndalsnes; where I experienced both winter and summer within one week. Åndalsnes was also an interesting place to go as a geoscientist: the Mannen (“The man”) mountains nearby contain a section (Veslemannen, “The little man”, which has a volume of 120-180,000 m3) that is unstable. Veslemannen has been moving and predicted to collapse since 2014, and has kept locals, geoscientists, civil emergency response teams in Norway busy ever since.

The location of the NGI summer party - a great way to start the summer
Location
  • NGI Oslo, Norway

Impressions

Oslo in Winter
Oslo in Winter
Oslo in Summer
Oslo in Summer
Veslemannen to the far left of the mountain range (I think..), with Breitinden and Trolltindan to the right.
Veslemannen to the far left of the mountain range (I think..), with Breitinden and Trolltindan to the right.
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Full integration with an NGI cap
Full integration with an NGI cap
Cross-country skiing outside Oslo
Cross-country skiing outside Oslo

A GUIDE AROUND EGU 2019

ESR1, ESR 2, ESR 3, ESR 4, ESR 5, ESR 6, ESR 7, ESR 8, ESR 9, ESR 12, ESR 13, ESR 14, ESR15 | @ VIENNA, AUSTRIA (7-12 April 2019)

“The EGU General Assembly 2019 was a great success with 5,531 oral, 9,432 poster, and 1,287 PICO presentations that were attended by 16,273 scientists from 113 countries” (Copernicus Meetings, 2019).

SLATE was well represented with 12 PhD candidates, PIs (Achim Kopf, Michael Clare, Carl Harbitz, Finn Lovholt, Michael Strasser) and Aggeliki Georgiopoulou from the advisory board presenting their work.

12 ESRs coming from all over Europe to the EGU General Assembly 2019

Get your patch and let’s get started.

Presenting our work

Rachel, Jonathan, Tugdual, Shray, Kate, William and Matthias drew crowds of people into the lecture rooms with their amazing presentations. They spoke on a variety of topics; covering different aspects of turbidites and their evolution, contourites and submarine landslides.

“I was very happy to be able to present my work at this conference, as it gives an occasion to present our work in front of a wide audience with very diverse backgrounds. I came out with very good feedback and advice for my work.” (Tugdual Gauchery, ESR 3)

„It was my first time at the EGU and it was overwhelmingly large. I had the opportunity to talk to several researchers after my talk – it is always good to get feedback on both the positive and negative parts of ones research.” (Shray Badhani, ESR 4)

Davide, Ting-Wei, Stefano, Ricarda and Maddalena presented their work in the poster sessions and attracted a lot of people.

“Presenting a poster at a conference like EGU is a great learning opportunity for any early career scientist. On one hand, I had the chance to discuss my research with people working in the same research field and to meet scientists I had only known from reading their papers. What surprised me the most, however, were the questions I got from scientists specialized in completely different fields, looking at my project from a prospective I do not usually consider. People who were just randomly walking around posters asked me the most challenging questions, highlighting issues that I never considered before, but that helped me to have a more complete understanding of what I am studying.” (Davide Mencaroni,  ESR 6)

And learning new things

Apart from presenting our own work, we took the opportunity to learn more about work from outside our own fields. Alongside the traditional poster and oral presentations, EGU also hosts so called “PICO” presentations (Presenting Interative COntent) and short courses on more general topics in science.

“One thing that I really enjoyed about EGU were the PICO sessions. PICOs start with quick-fire two minute presentations from each researcher to briefly introduce their topic and state their main conclusions. After, everyone moves across to the interactive area, where each presenter has their own workstation and large screen. This really facilitates discussion and allows for more flexibility that a standard poster or talk. For me, the PICO sessions are a great way to be introduced to an unfamiliar area, because the results are presented up front and you get to see a rapid cross section of the state-of-the-art in a particular field.” (Jonathan Ford, ESR 2)

 “It was a great opportunity to get some insights from overlapping, but vastly different, fields. For instance to see what the current state of research in Powder Snow Avalanches is, or to get some background knowledge on numerical modelling in turbidity currents as preparation for my secondment at NGI.” (Kate Heerema, ESR 5)

“One of the most exciting sessions I attended was on the recent tsunami events in Sulawesi and West Java (Krakatao), Indonesia (Blog). Although most of the group seemed to agree that these tsunami events were, in fact, submarine landslide-related, there was some surprisingly lively pushback from at least one seasoned researcher. I think the overall tsunami community seems to be experiencing a small paradigm shift in how they think about tsunami hazards. I also enjoyed stopping by different poster sessions related to tsunami hazards and had some great networking conversations with a group of researchers from Singapore about their work and how it relates to some tsunami survey work that I previously did as a master’s student” (William Meservy, ESR 12)

“I went to three courses, of which I especially liked the “Visualizing Science” course. I think we often forget how important it is to present our research to other scientists, as well as to the general public.” (Ricarda Gatter, ESR 9)

“The quantity and variety of soft skill courses available at the EGU undoubtedly adds value to the conference. I attended a course about communicating science with the general public and enjoyed hearing different perspectives about what effective communication looks like, and how that can take different forms. One point that stood out was the value of knowing when it is worthwhile to get the assistance of people who are trained in communication, such as journalists, to communicate significant results.” (Rachel Barrett, ESR 1)

Need help to find your way around? – use the EGU App

Finding your way around a big conference such as EGU can be difficult. Luckily, there was an app available in which you could find all the contributions and put together your personal programme. In addition, we kept everybody up to date with our own contributions via Twitter.

Floor plan modified from asv.at

“I knew that EGU is the most important Geoscience conference in Europe, but I didn’t expect something like this. It was difficult not to be impressed by the amount of different topics and talks, but above all, I was struck by the hundreds of posters that everyday are hanging in these huge rooms.” (Maddalena Sammartini, ESR 15)

To sum it up

“I was honestly impressed by the EGU conference. It was the perfect environment to discuss a wide range of research topics and learn about other researchers’ PhD experiences.” (Stefano Collico, ESR 8)

 “It is such a great international experience. I even met my friends from my home university in India. I am already looking forward to EGU2020.” (Shray Badhani, ESR 4)

“One of the highlights of the experience for me was that I was lucky enough to be able to bring my wife and kids along to explore Vienna. In the evenings, we were able to walk in the city together and eat a lot of goulash and Viennese chocolate cake” (William Meservy, ESR 12)

“EGU is an essential event for every geoscientist working Europe. It is the perfect opportunity to  meet new people with common interests, present the latest progress of your work, get valuable feedback and to foster old friendships” (Matthias Rauter, ESR 14)

EGU – Let’s meet again

Location
  • Vienna, Austria
Venue
Conference Schedule

SLATE participants

ESRs:

  • R. Barrett, ESR1 [Talk]
  • J. Ford, ESR2 [Talk]
  • T. Gauchery, ESR3 [Talk]
  • S. Badhani, ESR4 [Talk]
  • K. Heerema, ESR5 [Talk]
  • D. Mencaroni, ESR6 [Poster]
  • T-W Wu, ESR7 [Poster]
  • S. Collico, ESR8 [Poster]
  • R. Gatter, ESR9 [Poster]
  • W. Meservy [Talk]
  • T. Zengaffinen, ESR13 [Poster]
  • M. Rauter, ESR14 [Talk]
  • M. Sammartini, ESR15 [Poster]

other SLATE members:

  • A. Kopf, PI of ESR7 [Poster]
  • M. Clare, PI of ESR10 [PICO]
  • C. Harbitz, PI of ESR13
  • F. Løvholt, PI of ESR14 [Poster]
  • F. Løvholt, PI of ESR14 [Convener]
  • M. Strasser, PI of ESR15
  • A. Georgiopoulou, Advisory Board [Talk]

Report of Ting-Wei's 2nd secondment @NGI

TING-WEI WU (ESR7) | @ NGI, OSLO, Norway (MAY-JUNE 2019)

Thanks to SLATE that provided financial support to make this stay possible, I could have a very nice working and learning experience in the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) in May and June, 2019. In its world-famous geotechnical laboratory, I continued doing my seismic strengthening study on Ottawa Sand with an advanced triaxial apparatus.

I would like to thank Carl Harbitz for introducing me into the NGI community where I not only enjoyed work but also got the chance to join many activities. NGI has a very active and vigorous working environment and I received a lot of support from numerous people, in particular from Yusuke Suzuki who assisted me in changing the load cell and the top cap, demonstrated how to measure the shear modulus using bender elements, and created an adaptive control function to estimate the specimen’s stiffness during dynamic loadings to improve data quality. In spite of his own lab duties and tight schedule before the summer holidays, he spent a lot of extra time with me to solve problems and discuss techniques and theories every day. I am very grateful to his great expertise and supervision which made my stay successful. Helge Rolandsgard kindly showed me for the first time how to prepare a sample with NGI’s moist tamping technique, which was very impressively precise in controlling the height of the reconstituted specimen. I would also like to thank Thomas Vestgården who helped me with the determination of minimum and maximum dry unit weights of my Ottawa Sand samples using NGI’s in-house dry deposition and vibration methods. 

I conducted 26 triaxial tests in these two months and gave two presentations in June. I really appreciated the presence of many attendees who gave me knowledge input and suggestions to improve the testing procedure, especially from Amir Kaynia and Brian Carlton. In the geotechnical laboratory, I received a lot of advice from numerous experts, and also got the chance to learn from people who did different kinds of tests. As I was not an engineering student before, it was very interesting to know the perspectives from those hard-core civil engineers. Many thanks to the lab people (Santiago, James, Yubin, Monica, Tariq, Pasquale, Jenny…) who kindly demonstrated their testing procedures to me!

Aside from the NGI work, I really enjoyed my leisure life because it was my first time to go to Norway and I was very impressed by the splendid Norwegian culture. May and June were a very good timing to visit Norway because it was (mostly) warm and bright, and I also got the chance to celebrate Norway’s national holiday on May 17th watching the spectacular parades with people wearing their nicest traditional suits. On one weekend I visited the western coast of Norway and completed one of the items on my bucket list to sail inside the fjords of Norway. Such a touching moment to see the  fjords which existed only in my geology textbooks coming to life in front of my eyes! Besides, I joined many Norwegian courses in NGI (Takk! Helene, Steven og Sarah) and hanged out many times at lunch and on the weekends with friends (Cungang, Margarita, Victoria, and of course Mattias, Kate…). My impression and memory of Norway during this stay was priceless. 

To conclude, it was a very nice visit for me to spend two months in NGI. Last but not least, I would like to thank Morten Sjursen for providing the lab facilities to use. I conducted this two-months work at the Schmertmann Research Laboratory (SRL) in NGI with advanced equipment to focus on research-oriented projects. In return to my free-use of the facilities and the training and advising I received, it will be my pleasure to wrap up the results and make a publication in the near future to gain visualization of this work and this laboratory to the scientific society.  

Location
  • Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI), Oslo, Norway

Contributors

SLATE coordinator:
  • Carl Bonnevie Harbitz
Co-supervisors:
  • Yusuke Suzuki
  • Brian Carlton
  • Maarten Vanneste
  • Morten Andreas Sjursen
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RACHEL'S SECONDMENTS TO DURHAM, SOUTHAMPTON AND OSLO

Rachel Barrett (ESR 1) | September 2018 - January 2019 | 7 July 2019

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The five months between September 2018 and January 2019 saw me “flitting” (as one of my aunts so aptly put it) around Europe in order to collaborate with overseas research partners and work with a variety of data. Following the SLATE workshop last September, I spent just two days at my home-base of Kiel in northern Germany before heading off for eight weeks of secondments in the UK (at Durham University and the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton) and in Norway (at VBPR in Oslo). I also returned to Oslo for a couple of weeks in January in order to finalize figures for my first manuscript.

Secondments at Durham University and the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (24 Sept. – 10 Oct. 2018)

The purpose of my visit to Durham University was to map out turbidites evident in 3.5 kHz and single-channel seismic data across the Aegir Ridge, north of the Tampen Slide offshore of Norway, to write a report about the distribution of these turbidites, and to meet with my supervisor Pete Talling.

During a cruise in 2014, several cores that extend through, or into, these turbidite sequences were collected in the Aegir Ridge region. These cores are held at the British Ocean Sediment Core Research Facility (BOSCORF), operated by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) in Southampton. So, during my visit to the UK, I spent a week working at BOSCORF and NOC. I worked on visual logging of one of the key cores in the area and also obtained high-resolution radiograph images of the core. As a geophysicist, I do not often get the chance to work with core material, so this was really a great opportunity to practise my core description and analysis skills.

Unfortunately, there is a large data gap between the Aegir Ridge (where the turbidites are observed) and their potential source region, which makes it difficult to fully understand the process of emplacement of these turbidites. Consequently, this component of my project is currently on hold.

Secondments at VBPR, Oslo
(11 Oct. – 10 Nov. 2018, and 14-25 Jan. 2019)

Following my visit to the UK, I returned to Oslo in order to continue working with the AMS17 3D seismic cube that I first began to work with at the end of August 2018. My goals for this visit were to pick the top and bottom surfaces of the Tampen Slide from the 16,000 km2 3D seismic cube, perform geomorphological analysis of the Tampen Slide headwall region and analyse the internal deformation of the Tampen Slide. I also linked the picked surfaces to other datasets in the vicinity, so as to better map out the extent of the Tampen Slide. I returned to VBPR again for two weeks in January in order to finish mapping out the base of the Tampen Slide and finalise figures for a manuscript I am working on.

Spending so much time away from my home-base of Kiel has made it challenging to get into a routine – for example, committing to a sports team here is out of the question – however, the opportunity to spend extended periods in different cities, experiencing what it is like for locals who call these places home, is both rare and one I am grateful to have had. The SLATE students and members of my supervisory team who are based in Durham, Southampton, and Oslo welcomed me into their lives and routines during the time that I spent in their respective cities, and for that I am immensely grateful.

Where?

When?

  • September – November 2018
  • January 2019

Impressions

Durham in Autumn 2018
Durham in Autumn 2018
Spending time at BOSCORF and the NOC in Southampton gave me the opportunity to get more familiar with sediment cores
Spending time at BOSCORF and the NOC in Southampton gave me the opportunity to get more familiar with sediment cores
Oslo Science Park (January 2019)
Oslo Science Park (January 2019)

Ifemer 2nd part-Tugdual Gauchery

        My second stay at Ifremer (Best, France), with my co-supervisor Antonio Cattaneo, lasted one month from 15/04 to the 15/05/2019 and aimed to work on the first manuscript. This tight collaboration with Antonio and other experts from Ifremer helped in the writing process. The manuscript deals with the relationships between contourite deposits and submarine landslides studied with multi- and single-channel seismic profiles. Thanks to these profiles, we could look at the evolution of the Pliocene-Pleistocene succession of the Gela Basin (Strait of Sicily, central Mediterranean Sea) from shelf to basin. The sedimentary succession recorded the re-initiation of sediment deposition after the Messinian Salinity crisis (-5.332 Ma). Our interpretation of the profiles indicates that the number of MTDs increased in the northearn sector after the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (0.8 Ma) but remained a few in the south, where they involve the entire stratigraphic succession and are larger in extent, and correspond to identified mass-wasting of contourites deposited after the second last erosional surface (ES2). ES2 is located at the base of one MTD deriving from the collapse of a contourite drift and may have acted as a glide plane.

Kiel Visit N° 4

Monika Wiebe (ESR11) | @ CAU Kiel, Germany (4-27 February 2019)

February 2019 brought me back to Kiel – this time for almost four weeks. After my previous three visits (see here, here, and here), I felt almost at home in this charming northern German city. The purpose of another visit was a mixture of the need to get input on seismic analysis, and the desire to get input on my current work progress.

During my stay, I was supervised by Dr. Felix Gross, who helped me with the seismic analysis, and with getting my thoughts organised on how to write a paper. The seismic analysis did not reveal any major results, but having done it myself helped me to better understand the types of data I am dealing with. During meetings with Dr. Gareth Crutchley (GNS Science) and Dr. Morelia Urlaub (GEOMAR) I also got valuable feedback and ideas on how to proceed, which resulted in a new model scenario that I conducted during my stay.

The longer stay also enabled me to see more of Kiel, such as the famous seals in front of the GEOMAR building along the Kieler Förde.

Where?

When?

  • 04. – 27.02.2019

Kiel impressions

The famous Kiel seals (right now under water)
The famous Kiel seals (right now under water)
Old town hall
Old town hall

Annual Meeting of the German Geophysical Society (DGG)

Monika Wiebe (ESR11) | @ TU Braunschweig, Germany (3-7 March 2019)

Shortly after my most recent secondment at Kiel University, I had the chance to attend the Annual Meeting of the DGG – the “Deutsche Geophsikalische Gesellschaft” (German Geophysical Society), not to be confused with the “Deutsche Gartenbauwissenschaftliche Gesellschschaft” (German Horticultural Sciences Society). The DGG brings together geophysicists from academia and industry, in order to connect and share knowledge. A number of students also attended the meeting, some of whom even came as larger groups from their universities.

It was my first time attending such a meeting and presenting my work to national and international researchers in form of a poster. Explaining my project to scientists from very different backgrounds and seeing their interest in my work was a good experience for me.

When you come from the University of Bremen, as I do, geophysics is used almost as a synonym for marine seismics. While my previous studies covered the other geophysical disciplines (like gravimetry, magnetics, etc.), few people at the University of Bremen actually apply them. So it was almost surprising for me to see the number of presentations and posters not focusing on marine seismics. I attended a number of different plenary talks and sessions, from geodynamics to seismology to volcanology, and enjoyed the experience of diving into different topics that I don’t usually come across. For example, I discovered that it is worth checking earthquake records on the basis of historic newspaper articles in order to get a complete and verified earthquake catalogue.

Where?

  • TU Braunschweig

When?

  • 03. – 07.03.2019

Impressions

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Maarten's (ESR 10) Experience of the AGU Fall Meeting 2018

Maarten Heijnen (ESR 10) | @ Washington, D.C., U.S.A. (10-14 December 2018)

The AGU fall meeting might be the largest conference for geoscientists in the world. I imagined from all the stories over the years that this conference is the Las Vegas of geosciences, and I wanted to experience this at least once during my PhD. So I took the opportunity to visit last year’s AGU Fall Meeting in Washington D.C.

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a large organisation which organises several geoscience-related events each year, and offers different kinds of support and service to geoscientists. But, they are probably most famous for the fall meeting that organise yearly. This meeting is usually in San Francisco, but has been moving around the United States for the last few years due to renovations of the usual venue. The 2018 edition was held from 10-14 December in Washington, D.C. With approximately 25000 participants yearly, AGU is the largest conference in the field of geosciences in the world.

Due to its enormity, the conference has a lot to offer in terms of science, networking, non-technical activities and sessions, and an exhibition of companies, networks, and associations. Furthermore, the AGU is a broad conference, allowing me to compose a very relevant schedule of talks consisting of interesting bits from ocean sciences, sedimentology, physical geography, and geophysics. Another important reason for me was to come in contact with the deep-water sedimentology community in the United States, who were not present at the conferences I’ve attended previously. So all of this made me decide to attend the AGU last year and go and see this massive conference for myself!

I submitted an abstract in the summer of 2018, which was accepted as a poster presentation in the submarine channel session. The AGU has a reputation for being a very good conference for poster sessions, so I was excited to experience this. After the schedule was finalised, I learned that the submarine channel session lasted all Monday, with orals in the morning and posters in the afternoon. Different from many other conferences, posters are not squeezed in the late afternoon (e.g. 5-7) during drinks after a full day of talks. For me, the AGU definitely lived up to its name of being good for posters. A lot of people visited my poster and I had interesting discussions during the session.

I also enjoyed the oral sessions very much, and noticed that some research groups in the United States have very different focus and do research on aspects that we don’t really in Europe, which was very interesting. Furthermore, industry presentations were much more common during the AGU than during other conferences I had attended before, which can give a nice twist to an oral session.

Apart from technical sessions, sessions and workshops on all sorts of other subjects such as communication and education are organised. I attended a session and followed a workshop on science communication, which was also really interesting.

Furthermore, several relaxing and networking events are organised during the AGU. The biggest event this year was the ‘night at the museum’. On one of the nights of the conference, all museums on the Washington mall were open in the evening and only accessible for AGU participants. I went, however, with some friends to see the film ‘free solo’ in the National Geographic office, which was preceded by a discussion panel of geologists. Lastly, I attended a student’s breakfast one of the mornings, which was a really nice opportunity to meet fellow PhD students and early career scientist.

Altogether I experienced the AGU Fall Meeting as an enormous, sometimes overwhelming conference, with a very diverse and extensive program. It is a great conference for multidisciplinary scientist and a great way to meet scientists that you generally don’t meet at other conferences.

 

Location
  • Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
Venue
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ESRs' experiences of the "British Sedimentological Research Group Anual Group Meeting 2018" (BSRG2018)

Kate Heerema (ESR5), Ricarda Gatter (ESR9), Maarten Heijnen(ESR10) | @ Edinburgh, United Kingdom (18-19 December 2018)

This year’s conference for the British Sedimentological Research Group (BSRG) was held in Edinburgh, just before Christmas. Kate (ESR 5), Ricarda (ESR 9) and Maarten (ESR 10) represented the PhD students from SLATE, and Mike Clare was the PI present for this British based sedimentological conference.
BSRG is a conference that predominantly attracts UK-based sedimentologists, with a few Dutch, Norwegian and German sedimentologists culminating to about ~100 scientists gathering. It is a relatively small conference, with four parallel sessions divided over two days. Ricarda gave a poster presentation, Kate an oral presentation, and Maarten did both an oral and poster presentation. BSRG is a great way to get your research and (wild) ideas out there, receive feedback and improve your ideas and plans!

The conference also has workshops and field trips preceding and following. 
Ricarda participated in the pre-conference workshop “Contourites: seismic and sediment characteristics”, organised by Dorrik Stow, Zeinab Smillie and Uisdean Nicholson from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. At the beginning, the participants got a brief introduction to the terminology and relevance of contourites before they could examine contourites themselves based on seismic data and core material from selected case studies.
Kate went to a workshop where various aspects of sedimentological datasets were shown. The core store showed an excellent record of sedimentological rock sequences found across Scotland. Flume tanks show sedimentological structures being formed in actions, creating ripples, and dropping high density fluids in the tanks. And finally, digging in closer, we used microscopy to get into the nitty gritty of sediments.

All-in-all, a pretty successful workshop with lots of new information, networking and seeing old friends.  

Kate Heerema ESR 5

“For me it was the first time attending the BSRG conference, but not the first conference of my PhD. The great thing about the BSRG conference is, I think, the small scale. After my presentation on my current chapter, I got some great feedback that has really helped improve my research. In addition, as it is small scale, it is far less intimidating, and meeting new people is a lot easier!”

Ricarda Gatter ESR 9

“BSRG was the first conference I went to and I really enjoyed it. Thanks to BSRG being a smaller conference, it was easy to interact and get to know new people. Everybody was extremely friendly and I gained a lot of valuable knowledge from the presentations, posters, and discussions. In addition, I learned a lot about contourites during the pre-conference workshop. This new information will definitely help me a lot in analysing my data, which also comprises contouritic deposits. All in all, it was a wonderful experience, which significantly enhanced my knowledge of sedimentology and allowed me to meet nice people in a beautiful city.”

Maarten Heijnen ESR 10

“This was the third time for me attending the BSRG AGM conference. I have, since last year, also became a postgraduate representative for the BSRG, which means that I organise workshops and fieldtrips for other early career scientist. I’m starting to know more and more people within the BSRG community, so this conference was very nice for me. I presented a poster on the first chapter of my PhD and gave an oral poster on the second chapter, which was the first time ever presenting my second chapter. Furthermore, I wanted to practise my poster presentation skills, which is something I think I am not very good at, so I decided to present my first chapter as a poster. I received useful feedback on my work and presentation skills, and had nice discussions with a lot of different people. See you next year BSRG!”

Location

Impressions

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SLATE participants

Discussing science - the Tuaheni landslide workshop

Monika Wiebe (ESR11) | @ CAU Kiel, Germany (29-30 November 2018)

The Tuaheni landslide complex offshore New Zealand is one of the most (if not the most) studied landslide complex in recent times. In the last five years, it has been the focus of three research cruises involving multi-national teams of scientists – RV Tangaroa cruise Tan1404 in 2014, RV Sonne cruise SO247 in 2016, and JOIDES Resolution cruise JR372 in 2017/18. Multiple types of data and material have been collected during this time, including a 3D P-Cable seismic cube and sediment cores up to 180 m long. Scientists are continuing to process these data in order to get a better understanding for submarine landslides in general, and the Tuaheni landslide in particular. With so much work happening simultaneously but spread over the whole globe, it is challenging to keep track of who is doing what and which results have been produced already. To address this problem, scientists studying the Tuaheni landslide decided to come together during a two-day workshop to discuss their recent findings and ongoing work. As I also work on the Tuaheni landslide, this includes me.

In total 18 participants of six different nationalities travelled to Kiel for the Tuaheni workshop which took place on 29-30 November. I was already familiar with many of the names from paper reading, so it was great to finally be able to associate them with actual people. The first day of the workshop began with introductory talks about the objectives and main outcomes of the three expeditions mentioned above – these have provided the basis for research on the Tuaheni landslide. Then all participants had the chance to present how they have used the data, what they found out, and what they are planning to do in the future. A field trip that had been planned for after lunch on the first day unfortunately had to be cancelled, due to typical rainy November weather in Kiel. Instead, we discussed how to proceed with the workshop and which questions should be addressed in the remaining time. A joint dinner gave us the chance to continue discussions and get to know each other better.

The second day of the workshop was mainly used to work through the topics and questions that had been raised the previous day. We could not solve all of them during the course of that day – naturally – but we managed to come up with some strategies on how best to tackle these open questions. In the end we all agreed that, while we might not have found the big new exciting solution for how the Tuaheni landslide works, the workshop itself was beneficial to all of us. We are planning to meet again next year, when we might be another step closer to unravelling the mysteries of the Tuaheni landslide.

For me, the workshop was part of another secondment to Kiel. I used the days before and after to have more meetings with researchers there to discuss my recent progress and future plans. During my everyday work, I tend to focus on the difficulties and problems that arise. Attending the workshop helped me to see the broader picture and also my own work from a different perspective. I am confident that the contacts I gained and feedback I received will help me in my future progress, and look forward to next year’s workshop.

Where?

When?

  • 29. – 30.11.2018