IanPMatthews.bsky.social

Promotion criteria being hit!

I’m in the audience of this one, squint and you’ll miss me!

I’m tired of marking AI’s homework

It was an output of a @leverhulme.ac.uk funded project, their ability to fund this type of research means that step changes in scientific approaches are possible. The impact of these types of project are only really recognised many years later!

It has supported lots of funded research

but so have lots of lother people from all over the world

It's fair to say @simon-blockley.bsky.social, and I have used it... a lot!

A screen grab of Blockley et al. 2005 tephra extraction paper

It has been 20 years since we published this paper. It has been cited at least 278 times since then.

PhD Studentship alert!
I'm looking for a motivated student to work here in Vienna @vdsee-univie.bsky.social on my ERC grant "DISPERSE". It's a fulltime scholarship (working in 14C and #archsci in Palaeolithic archaeology in Eurasia.
Details in the link below!
jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Universi...

Summer warmth between 15,500 and 15,000 years ago enabled human repopulation of the northwest European margin Nature Ecology & Evolution - The authors use the latest radiocarbon calibration curve and new local palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental records from Britain to show that humans repopulated...

We've just published a paper on human occupation of the NW European margin and the importance of local climate reconstructions during the Lateglacial period. The paper represents a lot of work by myself and my coauthors over many years, we're all happy to see it published at last rdcu.be/eusdJ

AMOC Collapse Visualisation Map The interactive map that shows you the effects worldwide of climate change scenarios and the AMOC current collapsing

Really striking new study from van Westen and Baatsen and a class visualisation tool to go with it. This study looks at a future where the AMOC has collapsed. Temperatures hitting -22ºC in Dublin in the winter is pretty stark. Hearing these numbers can be shocking and worrying.

amocscenarios.org

New paper klaxon: pre print now available OA: muse.jhu.edu/pub/423/arti...

Thanks to everyone at @ria.ie for their work on this, and most importantly to Chantal for collaboration on the paper.

A short 🧵 on what we argue...

@ucdarchaeology.bsky.social
@ucddublin.bsky.social
@eaapam.bsky.social

A photo of GlenRoy

Boulder moraine

The Ossian and Ben Alder

Loch Laggan

Scotland!

I was a lucky recipient of one of these studentships and wouldn't have been able to afford the course without it. With no family background in Higher Education and no real understanding of academia, I think my life would have been very different without it.

In the early 2000s the course attracted support from the NERC in the form of studentships, to recognise it importance and the gaps in training that existed at that time. These funds encouraged students with less financial support to undertake PGT studies.

The course data has recently been used by the Quaternary Research Association to try and better understand gender equality trends in Quaternary studies, it highlights that since 1996 54% of graduates were female with that figure rising to 58% in the last decade.

Astonishingly, 221 of our graduates went on to study for a PhD, that's 58% of the Alumni. It's often joked that you cannot attend an international conference in this field without bumping into a graduate of the course... in my experience this is true!

In the early years of operation, our data are limited, but we have a record of around 380 graduates since 1996. By my calculations, 58 of these have jobs in academia around the World, with another 17 undertaking or having just completed doctoral research.

The MSc Quaternary Science website in 2001.

Taught in conjunction with UCL and a raft of World experts, it instilled a sense of scientific rigour and precision alongside a critical approach to palaeoclimatic studies...

a wayback machine capture of the rhbnc.ac.uk website in 2001 showing postgraduate study options.

RHULs MSc in Quaternary Science began in 1992, but morphed into the fully realised Masters in 1995, thirty years ago. I am an alumnus of that course, alongside many colleagues and friends from around the world. When applying in 2001 the website was basic...

Project Curator: Registration of Palaeolithic-Mesolithic Collections at The British Museum An opportunity for an academic position as a Project Curator: Registration of Palaeolithic-Mesolithic Collections is available, as advertised on jobs.ac.uk. Apply now and explore other academic job op...

Project Curator: Registration of Palaeolithic-Mesolithic Collections
The British Museum - Britain, Europe & Prehistory #skystorians www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DLS725/p...

February 7, 1784, after 8 months of activity the Laki-eruptions ends. This series of fissures erupting lava fountains up to 800 meters high was the strongest eruption in #Iceland's history and largest effusive eruption on land in the last 1.000 years🌋
tinyurl.com/3cv9jwrv

We've reached 1.5°C global warming.
With current policies, we're heading for a catastrophic 2.7°C warming.
A new review paper in Science shows: this would change the Arctic 'beyond recognition', with knock-on effects (like rising seas) around the world. 🌊
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Glaciations, Tragedies, Betrayals, and Heartbreak The rocky start to glaciology

This took me a long time to write 😮‍💨.
🥼❄️ ⚒️

Read about the seldom-told history about the first glaciologists, and why Louis Agassiz maybe gets too much credit for ice age hypothesis:
open.substack.com/pub/glaciers...

Tracing ancient solar cycles with tree rings and radiocarbon in the first millennium BCE - Nature Communications An annually resolved tree ring radiocarbon record reveals the 11-year solar cycle in the first millennium BCE, improving understanding of past solar activity and enhancing radiocarbon dating accuracy.

New continuous and annual resolution radiocarbon record of solar variability for the first millennium BCE from tree rings! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Park walk in Shaftesbury

Visiting Dorset

Pedents   Foot soldiers in the War on Error, They’re here to save us from ourselves, With Fowler’s Modern English Usage (first edition, nineteen twelve).   They scrutinise each word we write For typos, gaffes, et cetera, Correcting all our dumb mistakes To make our grammar betterer.   They sigh and tut and tell us off For the rules we have forsaken And chart this nation’s steep decline By the care we should of taken.   Custodians of the King’s English, They merely serve to keep it pure And restrict, they hope, the ignorant To three mistakes or less.   In doing so, they hold no fear they will deprive a thing of life: for it’s not important what is said, what matters is that its right. Brian Bilston

Today’s poem is dedicated to all those who have taken it upon themselves to correct the grammar or spelling in my poems over the last few weeks.

It’s called ‘Pedents’.

We don't normally see "step changes" in the atmosphere, but the dichotomy of sea ice vs. no sea ice will do it.

Our coring platform on Lake Windermere

An atmospheric view from the jetty museum across the lake

A jetty in Lake Windermere with beautiful pink and blue morning colours on the water. This is juxtaposed by the lichen encrusted jetty post

We got back from Windermere last weekend, the team collected some amazing sediments in a wonderful area. Our hosts at the jetty museum were fabulous and it was a great way to spend some of my research leave.

A jetty on Lake Windermere there is a flag which says Windermere Jetty museum

We’ve had some rain but it has been more dry than wet so far!