SUERC-Cosmo is based at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC), East Kilbride, Scotland, UK, and uses isotope geochemistry, accelerator mass spectrometry, and modelling to address questions in Earth, Environmental and Archaeological Science.

 

The Earth is continually bombarded by high energy cosmic rays and the interaction of these particles with atoms in the atmosphere and solid Earth produces extremely rare cosmogenic nuclides. Since the major advances in analytical sensitivity, accuracy and precision in the 1980s in-situ produced cosmogenic nuclides have become a widely used tool to address scientific questions in Earth surface sciences. Cosmogenic nuclides allow us to determine how long surfaces have been exposed to cosmic rays, or how fast they have been eroding, or how long previously exposed sediments have subsequently been buried. These capabilities have been utilised to address a wide range of first-order problems in geomorphology, glaciology, palaeoclimatology, palaeoseismology, volcanology, geohazard research, soil science, and archaeology.

 

SUERC-Cosmo utilises cosmogenic He-3, Be-10, C-14, Ne-21, Al-26, and Cl-36 in different mineral systems, and two dating techniques, surface exposure dating and burial dating. Surface exposure dating and quantifying erosion rates utilises the build-up of cosmogenic nuclides in minerals exposed to cosmic rays, while burial dating utilises the differential decay of cosmogenic radionuclides when minerals are shielded from cosmic rays.

 

Combining these approaches provides geoscientists with a powerful toolkit to examine landscape evolution and climate change. Group oversight and steering is provided by Dr. Derek Fabel and Prof. Fin Stuart, who work collaboratively to deliver scientific excellence and push the boundaries of cosmogenic nuclide geochemistry and analysis.