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In February 1974, I was drilling boreholes in Swansea Bay, South Wales. I was
in the first year of my PhD research. The project, defined by my advisor, the famous
former BP micropaleontologist, Fred Banner, was to reconstruct coastal change in
the northern Bristol Channel over the last few thousand years. I had no idea what I
was doing.
Back in the early 1970s, advising doctoral students in the UK was very different
from today. Fred gave me a project and the basic, albeit unspoken message, was,
“See you in three years when you’re finished.” Fred was the Head of the fledgling
Department of Oceanography at University College Swansea, University of Wales
and a very busy man. I was somewhat shy in those days and I didn’t want to trouble
him. So we crossed paths just three times in those three years, first when we happened to go to the men’s room at the same time, second when Fred took me to the
British Museum (Natural History), now The Natural History Museum, in London to
check the identification of the microfossils (foraminifera) that became part of my
project, and third, when I struck gas in Swansea Bay!
I really had not considered doing a PhD after I completed my BSc in Geology at
UC Swansea. I spent the summer trying to save enough money to travel around the
world. I failed miserably. I was driving a small flat-bed truck, delivering fresh fruit
and vegetables to several supermarkets in the Swansea region. I was paid a pittance,
but I even lost that income when one morning I went around a corner too quickly
and scattered string beans all over the road. I was fired. That afternoon I went into
the Department of Geology to check my mail. As a fallback option to traveling the
world, I had applied to Imperial College in London to do a Master’s degree in petroleum geology and I was waiting for the inevitable rejection letter. I think the office
staff felt sorry for me and they mentioned that some bloke who I’d never heard of, a
Fred something, over in Oceanography was looking for a PhD student. Luckily, the
reality of my situation had kicked in for me and I walked across campus, dressed in
my work clothes, complete with the stains of rotten fruit, to meet Fred. I was shown
into his office and, in my nervousness, I reached into my pocket and gave him a
plum. This is not an interview technique that I recommend to anyone. But I walked
out of Fred’s office half an hour later as a PhD student. Fred told me later that he had
to work hard to not laugh out loud at the start of my interview, but he took a chance
on me and I have been grateful ever since.
So, I was drilling holes in the intertidal zone of Swansea Bay, just across the
Mumbles Road from the university campus (Fig. 16.1). I had no real plan. I was just
drilling where I could, based upon the varied substrate of the intertidal zone and the
distance from the high-tide line. The Bristol Channel, where Swansea Bay is located,
has the second greatest tidal range in the world (13 m = 43 ft) after the Bay of Fundy
in Nova Scotia. When the tide goes out, over a mile (1.6 km) in Swansea Bay, the
intertidal zone is vast. But it is also a very low gradient zone so when the tide comes
in it comes in very quickly!
I was working with a couple of technicians from the Geology Department, Frank
Cross and Dave Lancey, who were really supportive of me and my efforts to do
fieldwork. I learned a lot from them. Most days, we drove onto the beach, unloaded
the trailer and left the Land Rover above the high tide mark. We followed the falling
S. J. Culver
In February 1974, I was drilling boreholes in Swansea Bay, South Wales. I was
in the first year of my PhD research. The project, defined by my advisor, the famous
former BP micropaleontologist, Fred Banner, was to reconstruct coastal change in
the northern Bristol Channel over the last few thousand years. I had no idea what I
was doing.
Back in the early 1970s, advising doctoral students in the UK was very different
from today. Fred gave me a project and the basic, albeit unspoken message, was,
“See you in three years when you’re finished.” Fred was the Head of the fledgling
Department of Oceanography at University College Swansea, University of Wales
and a very busy man. I was somewhat shy in those days and I didn’t want to trouble
him. So we crossed paths just three times in those three years, first when we happened to go to the men’s room at the same time, second when Fred took me to the
British Museum (Natural History), now The Natural History Museum, in London to
check the identification of the microfossils (foraminifera) that became part of my
project, and third, when I struck gas in Swansea Bay!
I really had not considered doing a PhD after I completed my BSc in Geology at
UC Swansea. I spent the summer trying to save enough money to travel around the
world. I failed miserably. I was driving a small flat-bed truck, delivering fresh fruit
and vegetables to several supermarkets in the Swansea region. I was paid a pittance,
but I even lost that income when one morning I went around a corner too quickly
and scattered string beans all over the road. I was fired. That afternoon I went into
the Department of Geology to check my mail. As a fallback option to traveling the
world, I had applied to Imperial College in London to do a Master’s degree in petroleum geology and I was waiting for the inevitable rejection letter. I think the office
staff felt sorry for me and they mentioned that some bloke who I’d never heard of, a
Fred something, over in Oceanography was looking for a PhD student. Luckily, the
reality of my situation had kicked in for me and I walked across campus, dressed in
my work clothes, complete with the stains of rotten fruit, to meet Fred. I was shown
into his office and, in my nervousness, I reached into my pocket and gave him a
plum. This is not an interview technique that I recommend to anyone. But I walked
out of Fred’s office half an hour later as a PhD student. Fred told me later that he had
to work hard to not laugh out loud at the start of my interview, but he took a chance
on me and I have been grateful ever since.
So, I was drilling holes in the intertidal zone of Swansea Bay, just across the
Mumbles Road from the university campus (Fig. 16.1). I had no real plan. I was just
drilling where I could, based upon the varied substrate of the intertidal zone and the
distance from the high-tide line. The Bristol Channel, where Swansea Bay is located,
has the second greatest tidal range in the world (13 m = 43 ft) after the Bay of Fundy
in Nova Scotia. When the tide goes out, over a mile (1.6 km) in Swansea Bay, the
intertidal zone is vast. But it is also a very low gradient zone so when the tide comes
in it comes in very quickly!
I was working with a couple of technicians from the Geology Department, Frank
Cross and Dave Lancey, who were really supportive of me and my efforts to do
fieldwork. I learned a lot from them. Most days, we drove onto the beach, unloaded
the trailer and left the Land Rover above the high tide mark. We followed the falling
S. J. Culver