Ian Gass Bursary
This award (up to £1000) is made annually. It's open to anyone who has studied with the Open University (you need to have got good grades in at least 3 Geoscience modules) and who wishes to pursue independent geological work but who doesn't already hold a grant. You don't have to be studying for a PhD or MSc but may be pursuing a private passion. The money was donated by friends and colleagues of the late Professor Ian Gass FRS, founding professor of OU Earth Sciences, on his retirement in 1991.
Applications are now invited for 2012. Please download the two word files for the guidelines and application form. The deadline for applications is 31 January 2012.
Previous awards have included the following:
- Assessment of geological sites in the Dark Peak as part of the RIGS scheme.
- Petrogenesis of N. Brittany (Finistere) granitoids (for PhD studies).
- A study of the Portencorkie (Mull of Galloway) intrusion.
- Palaeoecology of the Gault and Red Chalk of England.
- Radiocarbon dating of S. Devon peats (for PhD studies).
- Provenancing Neolithic stone implements using non-destructive geochemical finger printing (for PhD studies).
- Field trip to examine the Laki area of Iceland (for PhD studies).
- Geology, environment and exploitation in the Cornubian mineral province.
- Stanner/Hanter complex. The oldest rocks in S. Britain.
- Multiple phases of intrusion as seen in dykes in Cawsand Bay, SE Cornwall.
- Current and past depositional processes in the Roslin Glen SSSI, Midlothian.
- Late Pleistocene sediments and palaeohydrology of the Exe Basin, SW England (for PhD studies)
Details of the projects of some previous winners
William Ferguson was awarded the Bursary in 2000 to assist with the development of a full-colour poster (as part of the Lothian and Borders Regionally Important Geological Sites (RIGS) Group). This illustrates current and past depositional processes in the Roslin Glen SSSI. Roslin Glen is a semi-natural wooded valley deeply cut by the River North Esk. Active geological processes include river floods and frequent landslides. The existence in the Glen of rivers in the ancient past are seen in the fossilised channels at Hare Craig (320 million years old) and in the sand ripples at Hewan Wood RIGS that formed during the Great Ice Age (14 000 years ago).
Mary Jack received the Ian Gass Bursary in 1995 for a project involving radiocarbon dating, which was part of her external, part-time PhD study of the coastal valley sediments and Holocene vegetation of south Devon. Radiocarbon dating was crucial to her study as it established the age of the base of each organic deposit. Botanical microfossil analysis from each deposit established changes in vegetation, which by having separate dates for each deposit enabled comparisons between them and correlation with similar studies at distant sites. The oldest deposit dated for this project was over 7400 BP years.
Duncan Woodcock won the Bursary in 1994 for a personal project on the Portencorkie intrusion. The unusual shape of some enclaves in this intrusion was one of the more enigmatic aspects of the study. This small intrusion, on the Mull of Galloway, comprises a varied suite of granitoid rocks that are exposed on some magnificent coastal outcrops. Papers were published in the journal of the Open University Geological Society, 17 (1) p.11, 18 (1) p.1 and 18 (3) p.58.
