Peter Barker

This is information for people interested in the topics in Geoscience that also interest me (mainly through marine geophysics and marine geology) - palaeo-oceanography and palaeoclimate, tectonics, earth evolution and earth processes. A very long time ago I was trained as a physicist, but then "fell among geologists" (as a good friend once said), and got hooked on trying to understand the earth.

After a brief time in the Indian Ocean, I spent my working life in the Scotia Arc region and its surroundings (the southwest Atlantic and southeast Pacific Oceans, the Weddell Sea), first with Birmingham University, then the British Antarctic Survey. I've taken part in around 25 research cruises, including 4 DSDP or ODP drilling legs. All this has given me so much enjoyment that I'm still involved, even though nominally retired. Right now I'm interested mainly in the evolution and influence of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (the ACC), which probably developed when a deep-water pathway opened as a result of the tectonic evolution of the Scotia Arc region. The current is widely considered to have been a key factor in the development and persistence of Antarctic glaciation (another of my interests over the past few years), as it seems now to isolate the continent in a ring of cold water. Surprisingly, despite much effort over a long time, we still don't know when the ACC began, or precisely how it has affected climate. Scotia Arc evolution has been very complicated, and it seems more useful right now to examine the ocean floor sediments (from correctly chosen areas, and with particular care), to find out more directly when and how the ACC developed. Ellen Thomas and I (see our preliminary proposal and newsletter) are trying to persuade the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) to take on this task.

The publications listed are a selection of those I've written over several years, that are relevant to Scotia Arc, Antarctic climate and ACC evolution. A full publication list (beware - its about 120 items long) is provided elsewhere, and the links above give more precise information on where we are with our ACC efforts. I've added a few photographs for interest.Also available are a presentation to a Euro-IODP meeting in Bremen in March 2004, and a brief submission to an IPY discussion at SCAR 28, July 2004

If you want to email me, use pfbarker@tiscali.co.uk