Getting to the core of climate history

Jess Hargreaves wanted to be a mathematician, so how did she end up a palaeoclimatologist?

Because of a clam.

Jess, a PhD researcher at the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences, says it was during her Bachelor of Science (Advanced) degree when this new career path presented itself to her.

“In an undergraduate research project, we used clams from an island in the Pacific to look at El Niño cycles,” she remembers.

“And I just thought it was mind-boggling that you could pick up this tiny little clam and see that there was an El Niño cycle happening while it was alive.

“I thought it was crazy that something so tiny could tell you so much about climate.”

This description could now apply to Jess’ own mind-boggling PhD research: she digs out coral skeletons to understand how rainfall patterns in the South-East Indian Ocean region have changed over time.

Read the full article at the Australian National University College of Science website.