Castles and Coprolites

I'm a bit late posting about this as all the buzz was almost two weeks ago, but I'm happy to say that we have recently published one of the major papers from our NERC project at Paisley Caves . The project is almost at an end, and I'm pleased we managed to get everything done on schedule and within budget (including an extension due to my maternity leave halfway through!). What a wonderful 4 years it has been working on this amazing site. I can't believe it's been 3 years since I was blogging about our fieldwork  out in Oregon. So much hard work has gone in since then, especially from our postdoctoral researchers John Blong and Helen Whelton, and I'm really proud of the whole team. In summary, we applied a new lipid biomarker approach to identify the species of coprolites. Previously these had been identified using ancient DNA, but there were concerns regarding possible contamination and movement of DNA in the sediments. There is a lot we still don't know ab...

It's been just over 3 weeks since I got back from fieldwork in Sicily and I'm still missing the sun, and the fun of doing fieldwork. I had hoped to be doing more over the summer and getting on with microscope work for the Ness of Brodgar midden samples , but for various reasons that isn't looking likely. I have a mountain of admin  to get on top of, including sorting out adverts and interviews for a PhD studentship I have been awarded (exciting stuff, I'll post more about it when the advert is live), sorting out adverts for a postdoctoral position I have, related to a successful grant application (even more exciting, more details as soon as the grant details have been confirmed!). As the grant is joint with Bristol's Organic Geochemistry Unit , I also have to make a trip down there in August to sort out details and a work plan. Added to all of this is our website migration to a mobile responsive system. This is very welcome news as the current site is a bit out of ...