Student Prizes and Awards

Jennifer Hewitt, Darbyshire Award for Best BSc Student in Marine Physical Oceanography

Jennifer was also the recipient of the 2022 Undergraduate sedimentology award of the British Sedimentological Society Research Group.

Ever wondered what Europe looked like 21,000 years ago as the Snowdonia mountains were carved?

A team of UK geologists including Ocean Sciences Drs Katrien van Landeghem and Margo Saher have created the most realistic reconstruction yet of the extent of the last ice age over Europe and how it retreated, leaving behind the landmasses that today are Great Britain and Ireland.

The new reconstruction has already thrown up a few surprises including estimating that the maximum extent of the ice age, about 24,000 years ago, was about 30% larger than previously estimated. It also shows that the ice sheet retreat started before climate started to warm and that it’s collapse was surprisingly abrupt.

To find out more from their new paper: Growth and retreat of the last British–Irish Ice Sheet, 31 000 to 15 000 years ago: the BRITICE‐CHRONO reconstruction - Clark - 2022 - Boreas - Wiley Online Library

“At times during the last glacial period, Marine Isotope Stage 2: c. 29–12 ka, Britain, Ireland and the adjacent continental shelf were almost completely covered by a kilometres thick ice sheet.Over much of the 20th century, landform and sedimentary evidence of glaciation was interpreted to reconstruct an ice sheet covering around 70% of terrestrial Ireland and Britain and with the maximum ...”