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Ostracode Research Activities inThe UNITED KINGDOM of GREAT BRITAIN and N. IRELAND
Correspondent: Ian Slipper <I.J.Slipper@gre.ac.uk>
Ainsworth, Nigel Richard. My main current activity concerns my constancy work on the litho- and biostratigraphy of the Mesozoic basins of Northwest Europe, especially the North Sea and Atlantic Margins of Britain and Ireland. I am currently involved in the following research activities: 1) Statistical analyses using Ostracoda, in conjunction with wireline logs (with co-worker David Melnyk), 2) Ostracod and foraminiferid colour change by thermal alteration in both the offshore and onshore sections, 3) Lower Jurassic Ostracoda from the western margins of Scotland (with co-worker Ian Boomer), and 4) Stratigraphy of the Britannia Field Reservoir (Late Barremian – Late Aptian), UK North Sea (with co workers Les Riley, Liam Gallagher, Hayden Bailey).
Athersuch, John A. All my time is taken up with StrataData business. We have now released version 1.5 of StrataBugs, our biostratigraphic data management software.
Bate, Ray. 1998 was spent completing a large project dealing with Lower Cretaceous lacustrine sediments of the onshore/offshore Kwanza Basin (Angola). A large number of new ostracod species have been identified and it is hoped to be able to find sufficient time to write these up for publication. Hopefully during 1999. Current work in progress is as outlined above with respect to the two major faunal provinces of northern West Africa/Brazil (Gabon/Reconcavo) and southern West Africa / Brazil (Angola/Campos). This research falls within the remit of IGCP Project 381 on the Mesozoic of the South Atlantic. I have a stratigraphical paper on the lacustrine sediments of the Kwanza Basin has been written and waiting on industry approval.
Boomer, Ian. I am working on the following projects: 1) Use of microfossil assemblages to qualitatively and quantitatively reconstruct past environmental changes. This is mainly within the context of continental, saline lakes (Iberian Peninsula, Caspian Sea, Black Sea, Aral Sea, Lake Balkhash), 2) Establishing quantitative relationships between ostracod species and the physico-chemical parameters of their environments as an aid to qualitatively reconstructing past hydrological conditions and monitoring modern habitats, and 3) Various aspects of Jurassic marine and non-marine Ostracoda. Current work in progress includes: 1) Recently established links with French research groups to work on late Quaternary history of the Caspian and Black Seas, 2) Holocene evolution of the Lincolnshire marshes (with BGS & Reading), 3) Early Jurassic Freshwater environments in NE Italy (with Aberystwyth & Ferrara, Italy), 4) Late Holocene environmental change in N African lakes (CASSARINA – with UCL & Bergen), 5) Establishing research programme with Liverpool on Tibetan Lake records, 6) Continuing research activities relating to North Norfolk Holocene sedimentary record, 6) Ongoing research assisting with revision of Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology with Whatley (Aberystwyth), 7) Research links with Nigel Ainsworth on Early Jurassic micropalaeontology and environments of the Hebrides Sea, and 8) Departmental research links on Portuguese Holocene estuarine sites),Non-marine Quaternary deposits from English Midlands, Quaternary to Recent records of Ostracoda from Caves in Northern Britain and high resolution UK Holocene climate records.
Frogley, Michael. I continue to hold a Research Fellowship at St John’s College, Cambridge. This year I have concentrated on consolidating and publishing the results from a palaeoclimatic investigation of a 600ka, 319m lacustrine sequence from NW Greece. This includes details of the previously undocumented modern and Late Quaternary ostracod fauna from the lake (including several endemics), which I am compiling with Huw Griffiths. In addition, ongoing work from the site includes the improvement in resolution of the last glacial - Holocene stable isotopic record derived from ostracod shell calcite, being carried out in collaboration with Tim Heaton of the NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory in Keyworth, Nottingham.
Horne, David J. I am currently working on the following projects: 1) Phylogeny of marine and brackish water ostracod lineages, collaborative project currently being developed with Dr T. Kamiya (Kanazawa University, Japan) who is spend two months working at the University of Greenwich, April - June 1999; 2) Purbeck-Wealden (Jurassic - Cretaceous) Palaeoenvironments and Biostratigraphy; chapter for new "Biostratigraphical Atlas of British Ostracoda" (in press, publication due 1999); Collaborative work on Purbeck-Wealden ostracod palaeobiology with Dr K. Martens (Brussels) continues; contributed to review of Purbeck palaeoclimates by P.Allen (Reading University). Currently preparing papers on Purbeck-Wealden ostracod palaeoecology; 3) Supervising a Ph.D. student, Alasdair Bruce, on Holocene microfaunas and the evolution of the Fleet (Dorset); (co-supervisor J.E. Whittaker, Natural History Museum), completion expected May 1999; 4) Part of Acciones Integradas project (see under Ian Slipper), and 5) I will contribute to a workshop session on living ostracods (biology, ecology, behaviour) at the American Geophysical Union Spring Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, May 31 - June 4, 1999 (Workshop on ostracod biology, ecology and paleoecology for a better understanding of ostracod shell geochemistry, organised by P. De Deckker, T. Cronin & J. Holmes).
Johnson, Nicola A. I am over halfway through a 3 year work contract with the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge as a Geological Data Assistant (which started at the beginning of July 1997). The job remit is to update, maintain and develop the use of BAS’ central geological database using Oracle and Microsoft Access, with a view to GIS and Web manipulation/presentation of the data in the future. I have no current ostracod work at present as I am concentrating on my job. However, I expect to find time in the future to continue my interest in ostracods (I am becoming particularly interested in Antarctica and any ostracods that live there!).
Lord, Alan R. No ostracod work in last year other than editing ISO97 papers (see below). I am writing-up Pleistocene/Holocene boundary ostracods from Skagen, N. Denmark. I am working on papers with Dr C. Arias (Spain) and Dr D.J. Horne, and special issue of Marine Micropaleontology edited with Dr I.D. Boomer on ‘Ostracoda and Global Change’. I am working with a Masters student, Mr I. Hawkes, who is working on Holocene ostracods from a lake in the Nile Delta.
Miller, C. Giles. My research on ostracods has not progressed rapidly this year mainly because much of my research time has been spent on conodonts. I have had time to illustrate some particularly beautiful palaeocopes from the Wenlock (Silurian) of the Canadian arctic and plan to publish on them in the near future. I continue to curate the Natural History Museum’s ostracod collections as part of my job.
Slipper, Ian J. The Spring of 1998 saw the start of an Acciones Integradas project, together with Julio Rodriguez-Lazaro, Ana Pascual and Xavier Elorza from the Universidad del Pais Vasco, Bilbao, and David J. Horne and Andy Gale from the University of Greenwich. The project is to compare the Turonian ostracod faunas of the Anglo-Paris and Basco Cantabrian Basins. Initial field work and sample collection was undertaken in Sussex and northern Spain. As secretary of Ostracod Group I co-organized the 1998 spring field meeting, with the assistance of Alasdair Bruce we visited his Ph.D. localities of the Fleet. Roy Clements also lead us for a day of the classic Purbeck/Weladen section at Durlston Bay. Thank you from the Ostracod Group for your help. The summer of 1998 saw students from local schools with Nuffield Science Foundation bursaries working in the micropalaeontolgy laboratories looking at Ostracoda in Turonian samples from Germany. The delivery & commissioning of a new environmental chamber SEM in the School of Earth & Environmental Sciences has kept me very busy with users wanting to discover the delights of low vacuum SEM. Trying to find time for own research has been difficult. March 1999 saw the start of a collaborative project with Takahiro Kamiya and David J. Horne on the phylogenetic position of certain key ostracod taxa using pore mapping techniques. I am currently working on the task of converting my thesis of Turonian Ostracoda from S.E. England into a monograph for the Palaeontographcal Society. My survey of Gault Clay (Albian) ostracods from Folkestone, Kent is nearing completion, and the results will appear in the forthcoming Palaeontological Society’s Book, ‘Fossils of the Gault’ edited by Jeremy Young, Jackie Skipper and Andy Gale. A return to my undergraduate project area of Isle of Wight Oligocene ostracods is part of a study investigating depositional environments and glauconite formation with Andy Gale and Jenny Hugget.
Wilkinson, Ian P. Much of my time during the last year has been spent working on foraminifera and projects that do not involve ostracods. However, a small project on an unusual occurrence of late Jurassic ostracods (and forams), brought to the surface from depth by a series of cold water springs in south western England, has been prepared for publication. A second project currently underway concerns late Aptian ostracods from southern England. I have been working on a couple of boreholes from the North Downs, just to the south of London, and the information has been added to my database. I have been gradually collecting data for a few years and hope that a publication on Aptian assemblages from the Wessex Basin-Weald-Woburn area will be forthcoming. Finally, a series of boreholes from the type area of the old "Selbornian" (Albian) have yielded foraminifera, radiolaria and a few ostracods, all of which are being worked on with a view to publish.
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CYPRIS No. 17 (1999): home page, table of contents, ostracode research by country list