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Biography I am a geormorphologist and my PhD was about constraining the long-term evolution of the eastern Australian passive margin, using a combination of apatite fission track and (U-Th)/He thermochronometers. Since March 2003 I have been a post-doctoral fellow in the Deparment working at constraining the long-term landscape evolution of different tectonic settings by using low temperature thermochronometers and powerful 3-D numerical models. In September 2006 I have been awarded a BP/Royal Society of Edinburgh Personal Fellowship to study the effects of climate change on the landscape. I intend to constrain the changes in topography at different temporal scales varying from thousands to million of years using a combination of low temperature thermochronometers, in-situ cosmogenic isotope determinations and 3-D numerical modelling of landscape evolution scenarios. Research interests My research focuses on constraining relief development by using a novel combination of low temperature thermochronometers, namely the apatite fission track and (U-Th)/He systems, and powerful computer-based numerical models, to explore different ‘scenarios’ of landscape evolution. Measuring rates of erosion over long-time scales is a uniquely powerful way to identify and constrain changes in the tectonic regime or climatic conditions occurred in the past. These constraints can be in turn used to predict the effects of tectonic and climatic changes in the future. I have developed a novel technique to combine the thermochronometers by using both forward and inverse modelling to constrain variations in rates of erosion over a spatial and temporal scale in different tectonic settings, but focusing on passive margins and in all those situation where denudation has not been extensive and therefore difficult to constrain (e.g. in Scotland).
My present research has the aim to answer an apparently very simple question: ‘how does climate affect topography?’ It is well known that when a climate change occurs, the landscape is perturbed, responding with a series of processes that act at range of temporal and spatial scales. However, an understanding of how the landscape is perturbed and a measurement of the changes that affect topography have yet to come. This is a difficult challenge because, as the processes act at different temporal scales, the methods used to constrain such processes need to be sensitive to different time scales. Nonetheless, it is a fundamental issue, as it embraces two of the main questions in Earth Sciences: (1) what kind of information can we retrieve from the landscape morphology about past climates and (2) can we confidently predict how a future climate change will affect the landscape?
The key to answer these questions is to constrain climate-driven changes in topography that occurred in the past by measuring erosion rates at different time scales and by replicating the landscape changes through time using a complex 3-D computer-based model.
This project focuses on sectors of the European Alps that are tectonically inactive and aims at studying the variations in erosion rates over the last 5 million years, when climate in the northern hemisphere has become overall wetter and more erosive. I plan to measure erosion rates at different time scales by using two methods, namely cosmogenic isotope analyses and low temperature thermochronology. I will then use a 3-D computer-based model to simulate ‘scenarios’ of landscape evolution to find the one that is most consistent with the empirical data. Recent publications | View all publications >> van der Beek, P. A., Valla, P. G., Herman, F., Braun, J., Persano, C., Dobson, K. J., and Labrin, E. (2010) Inversion of thermochronological age–elevation profiles to extract independent estimates of denudation and relief history — II: Application to the French Western Alps. Earth and Planetary Science Letters doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2010.04.032 View full text >> doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2010.04.032 >> Kirkpatrick, J. D., Shipton, Z. K, and Persano, C., 2009. Pseudotachylytes; rarely generated, rarely preserved or rarely reported? Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, v.99, p. 382-388. doi:10.1785/0120080114 >> Persano, C. & Dobson, K. J. (2009) How many years can a mountain exist before it's washed to the sea? Or, Bob Dylan’s theory of landscape evolution. Scottish Geographical Journal. 125 370–378. Persano, C., D. N. Barfod, F. M. Stuart and P. Bishop. 2007. Constraints on early Cenozoic underplating-driven uplift and denudation of western Scotland from low temperature thermo-chronometry. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v.263, 404–419. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2007.09.016 >> Dempster, T.J. and Persano, C. 2006 Low temperature thermochronology: resolving geotherm shapes or denudation histories? Geology , v 34, 73-76 doi:10.1130/G21980.1 >> Recent research grants | View all grants >> Persano, C. 2006-2009 Magnitude and tempo of landscape change: reading the music, £105,011 (BP/Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellowship). Persano, C. and Dempster, T.J. 2006-2007 The detection of fluid movements in the crust using low temperature thermochronology, £29,996 (Carnegie Trust Larger Grants).
Persano, C. 2005 Royal Society of Edinburgh – International Exchange Program to visit Dr. P. van der Beek for 1 month in Grenoble and learn 3-D numerical modelling.
Current postgraduate students
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