During the Summer of 2023, Dr Ray Zammit who is a visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Education and also lectures at the Faculties of Science and Engineering took part in an Erasmus+ Mobility for training. This mobility training activity of 58 days was conducted at the Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University in The Netherlands.
During this period Dr Zammit underwent training and gained experience in the use of different mass spectrometer systems used to generate both stable isotope as well as stable clumped isotope data. This type of data is routinely used to obtain information about environmental conditions at the time when the sample in use was formed. Dr Zammit used geological material from the Maltese Ras il-Pellegrin and Marsalforn Bay sites. The rocks and embedded fossils from these locations formed around 14 million years ago, at a time of great changes in both global and regional climate. The study of such environments is important as it allows us to view climate systems that are similar to near future scenarios in the context of Anthropogenic climate change. In particular, the recently developed clumped isotope measurement technique is highly promising as a system that allows for the measurement of oceanic temperatures in the distant past and help in predicting possible future climatic scenarios.
Dr Zammit also had the opportunity to deliver a lecture to faculty members and students about his past and ongoing scientific work and engage in discussions with technical and academic staff and post graduate students. The training was coordinated under the supervision of Prof. Lucas Lourens (Utrecht), Dr Matin Ziegler (Utrecht) and Dr Martin Musumeci (Malta). The mobility and was administered by the University of Malta International Office. This was Dr Zammit’s third and longest training mobility sojourn at the Faculty of Geosciences in Utrecht and further consolidated the collaboration between the two institutions.