Case Study: Understanding Microplastics

Laura Robinson is a professor of Geochemistry at the University of Bristol and the department of Earth Sciences. Her main goal is to document and understand the processes that govern climate over time scales ranging from the modern day back through hundreds of thousands of years.

Laura became interested in microplastics because of her surprise at finding them in the deep sea. She is now interested in developing research in microplastics and sharing her findings through outreach so that the public can understand the problem better. She is looking at how to turn her expertise and data into outcomes, so that everyone can address the issue. Through a combination of field work and lab work she has been tackling questions relating to:

• Timing of Pleistocene climate change events

• Palaeoclimate reconstructions

• Deep-sea coral paleo-biogeography

• Impact of weathering on the ocean and climate

• Biomineralization

• Development of new geochemical proxies for past climate conditions

• Chemical tracers of ocean circulation