Dr Robin Edwards - Associate Professor of Earth Sciences

Leader of the Reconstructing Ocean & Coastal Change Research Group.    Course Director: Earth Sciences (TR077)

Reconstructing Ocean & Coastal Change (ROCC) Research Group

Current Research

Relative Sea-Level Change and the Submerged Landscapes of Northern Ireland

Models of the glacio-hydro-isostatic adjustment process play a central role in understanding past, present and future sea level change. Misfits between model simulations and field-based reconstructions are subjects of recent debate in the academic literature, with some authors contending the current generation of models are fundamentally flawed. This project uses a novel combination of geophysical modelling and ground-truthed marine acoustic data to identify and map palaeoshorelines along the northern coast of Ireland. These will be used to test an explicit hypothesis regarding the competing and mutually exclusive geometries of RSL change inferred from model simulations and field-based reconstructions.

This project forms the basis of Ben Thebaudeau's PhD research, funded by SFI.

Click here for information on the 2012 cruise to collect sediment cores off the Antrim Coast.

The first part of this research has been published in the journal Geomorphology.

Relative Sea-Level Change in the Shannon Estuary, Western Ireland

Sea-level rise and coastal change are significant potential impacts of climate warming. Computer models can simulate patterns of sea-level change, but require accurate field data to train and test them. Data from western Ireland are important due to its sensitive location at the former margins of a dynamic ice sheet. However, traditional sea-level reconstruction methods have failed to produce reliable data from this area, and its sea level history is currently contested. This project employs a new multi-proxy methodology that uses chemical and biological sea-level indicators contained within inter-tidal sediments to provide data suitable for model testing.

This project forms the basis of Kieran Craven's PhD research, funded by IRCSET, which was completed in 2013. It builds on an earlier project funded by Enterprise Ireland which comprised the PhD work of Tony Brooks, which has resulted in several publications in peer reviewed journals.

We are currently writing up the results of the thesis for publication: watch this space...

Examining Evidence for a Recent Acceleration in the Rate of Sea-Level Rise

Scientists agree that sea level rise is potentially one of the most devastating impacts of future climate change, but tide gauge records are too short to show whether sea levels are rising faster today than in the past. This research theme employs high-resolution geological indicators to relocate former sea levels. These geological-based reconstructions are compared with tide gauge data and historical evidence of coastal change. They will then be extended to reconstruct sea level rise over the last few centuries to millennia, and evaluate the evidence for accelerations that may be linked with human activities.

Part of this work was funded by an SFI research project that finished in 2010 and is currently being written up for publication: some of the preliminary results will be available here soon. Alex Wright (based in the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) is working on his PhD with me and part of this work was published in the journal Marine Micropalaeontology.

North Atlantic Ocean Circulation Change and the British-Irish Ice Sheet

Ocean currents are important to global temperature regulation, providing poleward transport of heat. Where the currents impinge on the seabed, they can transport and deposit sand and mud. Such deposits can be used to identify periods when currents were active in the past, and to constrain variations in current strength and depth. This research theme investigates underwater slopes to the west of Ireland where deposits spanning the last glaciation are found. An extensive array of cores on the west Porcupine Bank has been analysed to reconstruct the history of current activity and to relate this to climate records onshore. Other work is ongoing within the Rockall Trough in collaboration with colleagues in NUI Maynooth and UCD.

This project forms the basis of Sabrina Renken's PhD research, funded by IRC, which will run from 2013-2017. This builds on an earlier project funded by SFIthat led to the PhD of Nick Owen. This work is currently being written up for publication: some preliminary results are available here.