At the end of June, Leif, Xiaoxia, Audrey and Kathy went to the Vispa valley, Switzerland, for the first fieldwork of this year (which was also Kathy’s first geological expedition!) for Xiaoxia’s PhD research. Xiaoxia’s project is part of the ERC supported ICED project, which aims to investigate the timing of overdeepened valley formation and relate it to glacial/interglacial cycles using novel OSL and ESR thermochronometry. Samples were collected along the Saas and Matter Vispa rivers to determine the timing of valley incision. The trip started at the conjunction of the Rhone and Vispa valleys before migrating towards the Saas Vispa river valley- which is characterized by a deep valley. Although the original aim was to collect samples as close to the river as possible, most of the place were inaccessible. In the end, the team managed to successfully collect 11 samples which will be processed at the University of Lausanne in the next few months.
