Made it to Scottish Parliament via some nice historic buildings!

Always v nice to come on a day trip to Edinburgh! It's finally stopped raining and less freezing than of late

Off again on my travels! Today I'm heading to Scottish Parliament for a round table discussion around policy and finance which I'm really looking forward to.

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Today I'm off to Uppsala for a resilience workshop! V excited.

Seasons greetings to everyone! This is a lovely peatland on Arran where have been working the last few years

I suspect not much of it left...

An incredible legacy - one of quiet determination focused on the beauty and incredible importance of bogs.

Looks like a sedge,???

Really enjoying our visit to the Agricultural Research Council facilities at Porteshtroom & their research on traditional crops as part of AGRI-DRY project

I realised I had a very emotional response to the African landscapes we visited today. It brought to mind the Out of Africa book, something I have not thought of for years but it came to mind today. Something about the light and vegetation caught at me.

S African velt and archaeology. Such interesting discussions this morning on the AGRI-DRY summer school at NWU

Heading to south Africa this evening for the AGRI-DRY summer school at NWU. I'm really looking forward to this one and a break from Scottish weather gloom!

We have found out about evolution of peat across a series of sites and understanding carbon content over time and space. Lab work still happening! This is a contribution towards the UK's land use for net zero programme of research...

Another lovely peat core this time from Thorne Moors! So far we have collected over 60 cores on this project over the last few months, which is quite an achievement.

No problem!

Interesting! I'll take a look at this. We do have data on species abundances and numbers from insect studies.

I know! I'm v excited about this trip also. I'm still doing lots of bog trotting in more mundane places though :)

I'm super excited about this.... I'm also going to south Africa soon as we are working on wetlands there also as part of AGRI-DRY work.

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I am very excited about something I've been planning for a few months. I'm starting mandarin lessons on Sept and I'm beyond excited about this, I've been wanting to do this for a while. It's in anticipation of a trip to China, hopefully next year! Would love to connect with China archaeologists.

The base I think is fluvio-glacial and then there are some beach pebbles mixed in - storm cast is an interesting idea. It's the top terrace of 3 so could be v much on margins of beach or upcast as you suggest.

Yes I think so. They represent a high level stand of +31 metres at the end of last ice age but I suspect are mixed with fluvio-glacial materials also. I assume deposit is mixed and short-lived.

There are some rounded beach pebbles amongst the materials but it's classified as raised beach by bgs. It abupts glacio-fluvial deposits though so I suspect some of this is that rather than raised beach. It's at the top of a series of beach terraces but quite high at +31m.

Yes something like this.

The BGS classify it as a raised beach but we think it has fluvio-glacial materials towards base with beach deposits on top.

There are beach pebbles in between which is what has caused some confusion.... I suspect much of this is glacially derived with some beach material above. Context wise colluvium seems less likely but it's also something I'd been thinking.

Yes we wondered that. It also has beach pebbles too, so has a mixture of materials.

Do folk think these look like beach or fluvially derived deposits? It's part of what we think is a raised beach deposit we are excavating...

Visited Mar Lodge on Tuesday. What an incredible landscape! Full of historic features too.

Penultimate day in Puglia and I am very sad to go home on Saturday. We've had a wonderful 3 week break. I could have happily have stayed another week but work becons back and then fieldwork. So, still plenty to look forward to! Today we had another amazing day at this beach. No people due to wind!

Yes, I did visit a wetland on my holidays in Italy! This is the one at Torre Guarcello... And then stunning sea behind. This was a real highlight today