Isotope Geochemist

Location: NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory, Keyworth and Department of Geology, University of Leicester

Tel: 0115 936 3427

E-mail Professor Randy Parrish

Biography

• Present: Head of the NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory
• Director of Science Facilities, British Geological Survey
• Joint appointment with the University of Leicester's Department of Geology and NIGL at the BGS 1996

Research interests

• Himalayan tectonic evolution and Neogene erosion, mainly Bhutan, Tibet, India, Burma
• The measurement of U isotopes in environmental and biological materials (esp. human urine): assessment of exposure to depleted uranium in military conflicts.
• U-Th-Pb geochronology applied to a wide variety of applications using accessory minerals and carbonate, mainly using LA-ICP-MC-MS methods.
• Innovations in chemistry and mass spectrometry in U-Th-Pb dating and other isotopic systems, including plasma multicollector mass spectrometry
• Accessory minerals in metamorphism: reactions, P-T conditions, and isotopic systematics with applications to the Himalaya
• The Neogene rise of the Coast Mountains of western Canada as a contributing cause of Northern Hemisphere Glaciation
• Exhumation of ultra high pressure metamorphic rocks and its chronometry
• Provenance of sediments and dust and applications to Neogene erosion and climate change
• Dating of Quaternary carbonate rocks by high precision U-Pb dating in archaeology, hominid evolution, climate archives
• Development of improved biomarkers for Pb exposure in population epidemiology using biological materials and teeth.

Skills

• U-Th-Pb geochronology
• Isotope geochemistry and mass spectrometry
• Tectonics, structure and evolution of the continental crust
• Climate change and tectonics
• N American Cordilleran geology
• Precambrian geology
• Himalayan geology
• Nuclear chemistry and isotope synthesis
• Heavy metal pollution, isotopic studies of metal bioavailability in soils
• Depleted uranium and human exposure
• Environmental isotope geochemistry
• Management of large research groups/facilities

Current grants

• River capture in the Easternmost Himalaya:Testing erosion-tectonic feedback models using paleo-Brahmaputra deposits of the Bengal Basin, Bangladesh; NERC, 2009–2012
• Dating the "Taung Child" Australopithecus africanus type specimen through U-Pb measurements of associated calcite crystals; NERC, 2010–2012
• Dust storms and Chinese loess sources over the last 22 million years; NERC, 2011–1014
• The origin of short-lived nuclides in the early solar system: implications for the assembly of terrestrial bodies; STFC  2008–2012.
• European EARTHTIME training network
• Other NERC Facility grants dedicated to PhD student projects

Professional association

• Editor Precambrian Research 2007–onwards
• Editorial Board, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 2009–onwards
•  NERC Coordinator for DU research 2008–2009
• Peer Review College of NERC 2009–onwards
• NERC Cosmogenic Isotope Facility Steering Committee 2008–2012
• RAE 2008 Specialist Evaluation Panel for Geochronology (HEFCE)
• Earth Sciences Panel Expert, Norwegian Research Council 2005–present
• NERC Ion Microprobe Facility Steering Committee 2005–2014 (Chair)
• NERC Isotope Geosciences Facilities Steering Committee 1996–present

Published outputs

• NERC Open Research Archive — Randy Parrish
• Full publication list

Key papers

Foster, G L, Lunt, D J, Parrish, R R.  2010. Mountain uplift and glaciation of North America – A sensitivity study, Climates of the Past,  6, 1–10, 2010. doi:10.5194/cp-6-1-2010

Parrish, R R, Arneson, J, Brewer, T, Chenery, S, Lloyd, N, Carpenter, D. 2008. Depleted uranium contamination by inhalation exposure and its detection after >25 years: implications for health assessment. Science of the Total Environment, Science of the Total Environment v. 390, 58–68; doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2007.09.044.

Chambers, J, Parrish, R R, Argles, T, Harris, N, and Horstwood, M. 2011. A short duration pulse of ductile normal shear on the outer South Tibetan detachment in Bhutan: alternating channel flow and critical taper mechanics of the eastern Himalaya, Tectonics, doi:10.1029/2010TC002784, in press.

Foster, G, Parrish, R R, Horstwood, M S A, Chenery, S, Pyle, J, & Gibson, H D. 2004. The generation of prograde P–T–t points and paths; a textural, compositional, and chronological study of metamorphic monazite. Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

Horstwood, M S A, Parrish, R R, Nowell, G M, & Noble, S R. 2003. Accessory mineral U-Th-Pb geochronology by laser-ablation plasma-ionisation multi-collector mass spectrometry (LA-PIMMS). J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2003, 18, 837–846.