Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/D521373/1
OSL 'ages' and depositional settings of December 26 2004 tsunami deposits in Phuket, S Thailand.
Grant Award
- Principal Investigator:
- Professor P Bishop, University of Glasgow, School of Geographical & Earth Sciences
- Co-Investigator:
- Dr JD Hansom, University of Glasgow, School of Geographical & Earth Sciences
- Co-Investigator:
- Professor DCW Sanderson, Scottish Universities Env Research Cen, SUERC
- Grant held at:
- University of Glasgow, School of Geographical & Earth Sciences
- Science Area:
- Earth
- Overall Classification:
- Earth
- ENRIs:
- Natural Resource Management
- Environmental Risks and Hazards
- Science Topics:
- Earth Surface Processes
- Sediment/Sedimentary Processes
- Quaternary Science
- Geohazards
- Abstract:
- The recent tsunami in S and SE Asia and E Africa has shown us how devastating tsunamis can be. We therefore need to understand how often tsunamis are likely to happen. One way to do this is to examine the deposits of ancient tsunamis, such as are found around many coastlines, and using various techniques to work out the ages of these deposits. We can then use these ages to try to establish how often these sorts of tsunamis occur. One important way we work out the ages of the tsunami deposits is a dating technique called luminescence. Luminescence dating uses a special characteristic of the structure of quartz and other minerals which are damaged by natural radioactivity in the sediments after they are deposited. If we measure the amount of damage and the amount of natural radioactivity bombarding the sediments, we can work out how long it is since the sediments were laid down (say, by a tsunami). The amount of damage is found by heating the sediments in the lab or by exposing them to lasers. This repairs the damage caused by natural radioactivity, and at the same time the quartz grains give out small flashes of light that are measured to indicate the amount of damage (the flashes of light are why the technique is called luminescence). BUT? it is critical for this dating 'clock' to work that the sediments have been exposed to sunlight as they were being deposited (because this sunlight sets the dating 'clock' to zero by repairing previous damage). If the damage points are not repaired when the sediment is deposited, there will be some luminescence signals still in the quartz crystal, leading to ages for the deposit that are too old (because there are too many damage points). In this research, we are going to collect samples of sediment from the tsunami deposits in Phuket in Thailand. We are then going to use luminescence dating to work out how 'old' the deposits are. They should of course be zero years old (they were deposited on December 26 2004), but we expect that we will get ages that may be many years old. If our ideas about this are confirmed, it means we will have to be very careful in the future about using luminescence dating to work out the ages of ancient tsunami deposits. We will try to work out which types of sediment give the best ideas as to the ages of the deposits (i.e., zero years) so that we can concentrate on those types of deposits in the future when we are trying to work out the ages of ancient tsunami deposits.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/D521373/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Standard Grants Pre FEC
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Urgency
This grant award has a total value of £22,068
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Total - Staff | Total - T&S | Total - Other Costs | Total - Indirect Costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| £10,185 | £3,568 | £3,629 | £4,685 |
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