The older you are the more you shine
Physical Geographers Professor Helen Rendell and Dr. Michèle Clarke (CCS) have been asked by colleagues at the University of Nebraska, to join the International Nanga Parbat Project, in Pakistan. Nanga Parbat is the tenth highest mountain in the world (8125m) lying in the western Himalayas, in northern Pakistan, and is of great scientific interest because it is the most rapidly rising part of the earth's surface.
The aim of the project is to try to understand the relationship between mountain uplift and climate change. Helen and Michèle have been asked to assist in mapping and dating surface features of the area using such methods as luminescence, which will be undertaken at the University's Luminescence Dating Research Laboratory, one of the top laboratories in the world.
Luminescence dating involves measuring minute amounts of light given off by a sample of exhumed sediment. "What we are doing is measuring the last time the sediment saw light", explained Michèle. Roughly speaking, the more light the sample gives off the longer it has lain buried. "We can date anything from 500,000 years old to ten years old."
Claustrophobic's nightmare - Michele Clarke resurfacing from a 10 metre hole in the Himalayas after collecting sediment.
Because the process is extremely sensitive to daylight it has to be carried out in complete darkness. "It involves lying under a tarpaulin in the pitch black and sampling by feel", said Michèle. "We must look mad to any passers-by who see us lying there halfway up a mountain with our legs sticking out of the tarpaulin."
The Nanga Parbat Project ties in with the work Helen and Michèle are currently undertaking on reconstructing past climate changes in the plains of Pakistan, near Peshawar. "These two areas are now seen as absolutely key in forcing change in the global climate", said Helen. "It was extraordinary timing to get this invitation, just when we were planning this phase of the work in the plains area. It seems they have been tackling a different aspect of the same problem."