Characterising Earth’s ever-changing environment in terms of its chemistry, physics, biology and more
We characterise important components of the ever-changing climate on Earth, a planetary body that has been around for roughly 4.6 billion years. Across its lifetime, Earth has sometimes been warmer and sometimes colder than it is today, providing us with the opportunity to study its natural response to environmental change.
Overall, our diverse and interdisciplinary climate and environment research seeks to develop a comprehensive understanding of Earth’s ever-changing environment in terms of its chemistry, physics, biology and more – from past dynamics to present day to likely future evolution.
If you are interested in one of the projects listed below, we encourage you to contact the primary project supervisor or the alternative contact person for further information.
Current projects
Dynamic Isotopic and Probabilistic Modelling of Global Metal Flows: Integrating Isotope Geochemistry, Bayesian Inference, and System Dynamics to Advance Industrial Ecology [Info Sheet - Plancherel DIPMod]
Supervisors: Dr Yves Plancherel, Rupert Myers, Pablo Brito-Parada, Kolyan Ray
Integrating Multimodal Very-High-Resolution Data for Ecosystem Intelligence and Natural Capital Monitoring [Info Sheet - Plancherel AI4UAV]
Supervisors: Dr Yves Plancherel, Matt Piggott
Data-Driven Detection and Attribution of Illegal Resource Extraction [Info Sheet - Plancherel IllegalResources]
Supervisors: Dr Yves Plancherel
Reservoir characterisation and modelling of CO2 storage underground [Info Sheet - Krevor CO2StorageModelling]
Supervisor: Prof Sam Krevor
Fundamentals of carbon dioxide storage by mineralisation to carbonate minerals [Info Sheet - Krevor CO2Mineralisation]
Supervisor: Prof Sam Krevor
Developing time-series InSAR for understanding changes to the ground surface, subsurface, biosphere and environment [Info Sheet - Mason EnvironmentalEO]
Supervisors: Dr Philippa Mason, Dr James Lawrence (Civil Engineering, Imperial College London), Professor Richard Ghail (Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway UK), Dr Cédric M. John
Understanding the role of submarine groundwater discharge using geochemical tracers [Info Sheet - Mckenzie ]
Supervisors: Dr Tristan McKenzie
Learning fast and generalizable climate models with neural differential equations [Moseley - generalizable climate models]
Supervisors: Dr Ben Moseley, Professor Christopher Pain
Biomagnetic monitoring as an urban air quality assessment method [Info sheet - Biomagnetic Monitoring]
Supervisors: Prof. Adrian Muxworthy, Prof. Dominik Weiss, and Dr. David Green (Public Health)
Sources and Environmental Impacts of Aerosols – A unique case study in the Northern Indian Ocean [Info Sheet - Rehkämper Sources and Environmental Impacts]
Supervisor: Professor Mark Rehkämper, Tina van de Flierdt, Priyanka Banerjee
Understanding modern biogeochemical cycles in the context of the international GEOTRACES project – Lead, zinc, and cadmium isotopes [Info sheet - GEOTRACES project]
Supervisors: Professor Mark Rehkämper, Professor Tina van de Flierdt
Reconstructing the history of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet using sediment provenance techniques [Info Sheet - Van de Flierdt West Antarctic Ice Sheet]
Supervisors: Professor Tina van de Flierdt, Dr Jim Marschalek
Environmental Pollution & Marine Biogeochemistry – Isotopic Tracing and Modelling of Lead & Cadmium in the Indian Ocean [Info Sheet - van De Flierdt indian ocean]
Supervisors: Professor Tina van de Flierdt, Professor Mark Rehkämper
Mantle Dynamic Impacts on Cenozoic Sea-Level Evolution [Info Sheet - Richards mantle]
Supervisors: Dr Fred Richards
Mapping the Continental Hydrogen Kitchen [Info Sheet - Richards mapping]
Supervisors: Dr Fred Richards, Ann Muggeridge, Rebecca Bell, Valentin Laurent, and Michele Paulatto
Source-to-Sink Analysis of Critical Metal Mineralisation [Info Sheet - Richards source to sink]
Supervisors: Dr Fred Richards, Tom Lamont (UNLV) and Alex Lipp (UCL)
Uncovering the impact of mantle dynamics on Cenozoic ocean circulation [Info Sheet - Richards uncovering]
Supervisors: Dr Fred Richards
Megathrust Earthquake Hazards and Coastal Erosion of the Cascadia Subduction Zone (Pacific Northwest, USA) [Info Sheet - Rood Megathrust]
Supervisors: Dr Dylan Rood, Dr. Martin Hurst (University of Glasgow); Dr. Devin McPhillips (U.S. Geological Survey); Dr. Anna Rood (Global Earthquake Model - GEM - Foundation)
Using Cosmogenic Surface Exposure Dating to Reconstruct Late-Holocene Glacier and Climate Stability to Determine Precedence for Recent Declines in Snowpack and Water Resources in the American Pacific Northwest [Info Sheet - Rood Cosmogenic Surface Exposure]
Supervisor: Dr Dylan Rood
Will climate change make coastal erosion rates faster?: Comparing historic and Holocene cliff retreat rates using cosmogenic isotopes with numerical models [Info Sheet - Rood Coastal Erosion]
Supervisor: Dr Dylan Rood
Forensic Detection of Microplastics [Info Sheet - Sephton Microplastics]
Supervisors: Professor Mark A. Sephton, Dr Simon Davis, David Bell (Protium)
Current projects in the Environmental Geochemistry Group for the Academic Year 2026/2027 [Info Sheet - Weiss PhD projects]
Supervisor: Professor Dominik Weiss
Characterising the Importance of Aseismic Creep and Slow Slip Events on Normal Faults [Info Sheet - Whittaker Slow slip]
Supervisor: Dr Alexander Whittaker, Dr Rebecca Bell, Dr Philippa Mason
Reconstructing erosion rates and sediment supply from mountain belts using palaeo-topographic and palaeo-hydrological constraints [Info Sheet - Whittaker PalaeoHydrology]
Supervisor: Dr Alexander Whittaker, Prof Gary Hampson, Dr Rhodri Jerrett (St Andrews)