David is a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the  University of Exeter, based at the Penryn Campus in Cornwall, UK.

David’s research  focuses on the development and application of novel oceanographic records derived from variations in the width and geochemical (d18O, d13C and 14C) composition of annual growth increments formed in the shells of long-lived marine bivalve molluscs. These records, known as sclerochronologies, are regarded as the marine and aquatic counterpart to dendrochronology. Marine molluscs, which can live for over 500 years, are increasingly providing long-term baseline records of past physical, biological and geochemical variability in marine and aquatic systems over past decades to millennia. Given the annual nature of the growth rings, it is possible to apply dendrochronology derived statistical techniques to construct absolutely dated growth increment width chronologies that facilitate the extension of the sclerochronology records beyond the life span of a single individual over past centuries to millennia.

David’s current research projects involve the development and application of annually resolved absolutely-dated records of past physical, biological and geochemical variability from the North Atlantic, the North Pacific and the Arctic Ocean to investigate local to hemispheric scale connections between marine, atmosphere and cryosphere climate dynamics on inter-annual to millennial timescales. This work involves the application of integrated multi-proxy techniques incorporating sclerochronologies, marine sediment cores, dendrochronologies and ice cores.