Geology Department Postgraduate Web Pages

Name: Benjamin Thébaudeau

Contact Details

Title of Project

Testing relative sea-level change simulations : a marine geophysical perspective.

Project details

Simulations of past relative sea-level (RSL) change has ignited a lot of interest worldwide in the recent years. The issue of whether the current generation of glacial rebound models (GRM) is capable of accurately simulating the rate and magnitude of past RSL change immediately following deglaciation is an area of current debate. The rapid melting of the British-Irish ice-sheet provides a case study that can provide critical constrains on GRM parameters. Despite their significance, Irish RSL  curves remain poorly constrained by data, and the latest model simulations are incompatible with some field based reconstructions. This project will use a marine geophysical approach, utilising new data from the Joint Irish Bathymetric Survey (JIBS) project to examine submerged landscape and coastline features along the northern coast of Ireland, with the objective of better constraining the RSL history in the area. These data will be combined with geological evidence collected by ship-based coring followed by dating and analysis, and the result will feedback into continued GRM development.

Name of supervisor

Dr Robin Edwards

Postgraduate personal details

I graduated in Physics at the University of Paris 6 and went on to a post graduate course on Applied Geophysics at the same university that included a 3 months training course in archaeological geophysics in the Orkney College Geophysics Unit in Scotland. I then worked for three years in Ireland in commercial Archaeology, including two years as a geophysicist. Through my academic career, I have learned from and worked with people from various fields and using various methodologies.
The arrival of the first human settlers in Ireland is a subject that fascinates me and a profound knowledge of the coastal environments in the north of Ireland, the supposed arrival place of the first settlers, is adamant to understand this period. When I was in contact with marine geophysicist in Coleraine, they introduced me to my current supervisor and his project of using high resolution data to help with unlocking the current debate in RSL change and add some considerable knowledge to our understanding of past environmental conditions at the time of the first settlers.

Project Start Date

October 2009