Undergraduate Course: Physical Geography Fieldwork: Iceland (GEGR10072)
Course Outline
| School | School of Geosciences |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Our overall mission for this course is to provide you with advanced practical experience in conducting original field-based research in physical geography. We base ourselves in Iceland because it is one of the finest areas of the world for the study of Earth surface process and human-environment interactions. Our emphasis throughout the course is on deep experiential learning: we spend just under two weeks in southeast Iceland, immersing you amongst Iceland¿s unique landscape and environmental issues, with five days dedicated to supporting you and your project team to gather field data for research projects that tackle important contemporary issues in physical geography.
The course primarily runs as the field class in autumn, prior to 4th Year Semester 1. In advance of then, we will run three short introductory meetings during the spring semester of your 3rd Year to discuss logistical arrangements, introduce project ideas and organise project groups. During the field course itself, you will undertake team-based project work to acquire data for your chosen research project. After the field course and through the first half of the autumn semester, you will write up an individual report, supported by formative feedback provided both during the field course and in Semester 1.
By undertaking extended research projects in Iceland you will have the opportunity to tackle practical research that includes a degree of unpredictability. You will critically identify and analyse complex problems, motivated and contextualised by speaking with course staff and reading relevant literature, and gain further experience with different ways in which research questions can be posed, tackled and addressed through the application of appropriate project design. You will practise the valuable transferable skills of team working, project design and implementation, and autonomy and initiative.
This course therefore closely develops themes explored in your first three years of university study, and provides an informative underpinning for planning and writing up your B.Sc. Geography Dissertation over the year ahead.
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| Course description |
Not entered
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Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 34 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Fieldwork Hours 100,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 2,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
94 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Project Report (100%):
- The summative assessment is in the form of a final research report that must be an individual write up of the research carried out during the project days of the field trip. The report should follow the format of a paper in the natural sciences and details of appropriate formatting and style are given in the course handbook. The text should be no more than 4,000 words in length (excluding the reference list, figures and tables).
- AI-Assisted Generation: AI tools may be used to identify ideas, key themes, and plan your assessment, but not to generate content. If you use AI, you must acknowledge it in your submission.
- Coursework Extensions: Extensions are permitted for this assessment. Please review the guidance on the Registry Services website and apply via MyEd.
- Extra Time Learning Adjustments: Students with Extra Time Learning Adjustments may request additional time for this assessment. Applications should be made using the Extra Time Learning Adjustment (ETA) tool, available via the Disability Support page in MyEd.
Formative Assessments:
1. Project title and list of group members. This will largely be coordinated during Year 3 Semester 2, and will be consolidated over the first three days of the field course in Iceland in autumn.
2. Three oral group presentations: (a) Initial project ideas (evening before first group-project data-collection day); (b) Mid-project progress report (middle of the field course, reflecting on two days data collection); Final summary (end of field course, reflecting on all data collection and plans for analysis).
3. Community statement. A two page summary of your group¿s project work for the host community in Iceland.
4. Data Report. A compilation of all collected field data, including metadata (descriptions of what the data are showing). The report should be in electronic form and include raw data and preliminary figures, and could include photographs, field sketches and maps.
Course Pass Requirements:
Students must attain an overall mark of 40% (or above) in order to pass the course.
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| Feedback |
- During the project formulation stage you choose a general subject to tackle; detailed feedback and guidance is given on the initial project outline as it evolves during introductory meetings.
- During the field course, you are required to make two intermediate oral group presentations and one final presentation about their projects; feedback is given on work progression and ways the project can be further improved at each of these.
- A number of individual project meetings are held in the field, and in the field centre. These provide you with the opportunity for discussion and to reflect on project design and progress.
- Oral feedback will be given to you on the initial data report, and this is followed up by individual project-group tutorial discussions.
- Written feedback will be given on the final individual report.
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| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Acquired knowledge of: the processes and landforms of glaciation, volcanism and human impacts on the environment; the Quaternary environmental history of Iceland; the strategic importance of Iceland to the study of global climate change; human-environment interactions and the functioning of complex social-ecological systems; tephrochronology and environmental reconstruction using tephra layers.
- Gained experience of: the analysis of environmental change through the study of system behaviour; how the practical aspects of physical geography are developed through the study of glacial systems, catastrophic jökulhlaups, or human-environment interactions at the northern margins of agriculture; project implementation and team working; use of scientific instrumentation, fieldwork data collection and recording; oral presentation; community feedback and outreach.
- Developed skills in: autonomy and initiative; the use of data sets, data identification, location and retrieval; critical assessment; field working and project execution.
- Acquired the ability to design and execute research shown by: The identification of a research title and the creation of a research team; developing, presenting and executing a group research design, meeting plans and making progress, gathering data, writing and presenting a group data report; writing and individual research report of up to 4,000 words for a summative assessment.
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Reading List
Required reading will vary by group project, and we will guide you towards initial readings as the course begins.
Baynes E.R.C., Attal M., Niedermann S., Kirstein L.A., Dugmore A.J. and Naylor M. 2015 Erosion during extreme flood events dominates Holocene canyon evolution in North - East Iceland, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112, 8, 2355-2360.
Björck, S., 1995. A review of the history of the Baltic Sea, 13.0-8.0 ka BP. Quaternary international, 27, pp.19-40.
Buckland, P., Dugmore, A., 1991. 'If this is a refugium, why are my feet so bloody cold?' The origins of the Icelandic biota in the light of recent research. In Environmental change in Iceland: past and present (pp. 107-125). Springer, Dordrecht.
Church, M. J., Dugmore, A. J., et al., 2007 'Timing and mechanisms of deforestation of the settlement period in Eyjafjallsveit, southern Iceland.' Radiocarbon 49(2): 659-672.
Dugmore, A.J. and Sugden, D.E. 1991 'Do the anomalous fluctuations of Sólheimajökull reflect ice-divide migration?' Boreas 20, 105-113.
Dugmore, A.J., Newton, A.J., Larsen, G. and Cook, G.T. 2000 'Tephrochronology, environmental change and the Norse settlement of Iceland' Environmental Archaeology 5, 21-34.
Dugmore, A.J. and Newton, A. 2012 'Isochrons and beyond- maximising the use of tephrochronology' Jokull: The Icelandic Journal of the Earth Sciences. 62, p. 39-52.
Dugmore, A.J. and Vesteinsson, O. 2012 'Black Sun, High Flame, and Flood: Volcanic hazards in Iceland' in Cooper, J. & Sheets, P. (eds.) Surviving Sudden Environmental Change Answers from Archaeology. Boulder, Colorado, USA: University Press of Colorado, p. 67-90.
Dugmore, A.J., Gísladóttir, G., Simpson, I.A. and Newton A.J. 2009 'Conceptual models of 1,200 years of Icelandic soil erosion reconstructed using tephrochronology' Journal of the North Atlantic 2, 1-18.
Dugmore, A. J., Newton, A., Smith, K. and Mairs, K-A. 2013 'Tephrochronology and the late Holocene volcanic and flood history of Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland' Journal of Quaternary Science 28, 3, 237-247.
Kirkbride, M.P. and Dugmore, A.J. 2003 'Glaciological responses to distal tephra fallout from the 1947 eruption of Hekla, Iceland.' Journal of Glaciology 29,166,420-428.
Dugmore, A.J., Sugden, D.E., 1991. Do the anomalous fluctuations of Sólheimajökull reflect ice-divide migration? Boreas, 20(2), 105-113.
Dugmore A.J., et al. 2020. 'Continuity in the face of a slowly unfolding catastrophe: the persistence of Icelandic settlement despite large-scale soil erosion.' In P. Sheets and F. Riede (Eds) Going forward by looking back: Archaeological Perspectives on Socio-Ecological Crisis, Response, and Collapse Berghahn Books.
Evans, D.J., Ewertowski, M. and Orton, C., 2017. Skaftafellsjökull, Iceland: glacial geomorphology recording glacier recession since the Little Ice Age. Journal of Maps, 13(2), pp.358-368.
Jakobsson, M., et al., 2007. Reconstructing the Younger Dryas ice dammed lake in the Baltic Basin: Bathymetry, area and volume. Global and Planetary Change, 57(3-4), pp.355-370.
Johnson, B. G., et al. (2017) A chronology of post-glacial landslides suggests that slight increases in precipitation could trigger a disproportionate geomorphic response. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 42, no. 14: 2223-2239.
Kjartansson, G., 1967.The Steinholtshlaup, central-south Iceland on January 15th, 1967. Jökull 17, 249-262.
Kirkbride, M.P. and Dugmore, A.J. 2008 'Tephrochronological dating of glacier advances AD 410-1947 in Southern Iceland.' Quaternary Research. 70, 3, 398-411.
Streeter R.T. and Dugmore A.J. 2014 'Late-Holocene land surface change in a coupled social-ecological system, southern Iceland: a cross-scale tephrochronology approach.' Quaternary Science Reviews 86 (2014) 99-114.
Streeter, R. and Dugmore, A. J. 2013 'Anticipating land surface change': Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 110, 15, 5779-5784.
Streeter R. T., Dugmore A.J., Lawson I.T., Erlendsson E. and Edwards K.J. 2015. The onset of the palaeoanthropocene in Iceland: Changes in complex natural systems. The Holocene, 2015, 25, 10. 1662-1675.
Nelson M.C., Ingram S E., Dugmore A.J., et al., 2015 'Climate Challenges, Vulnerabilities, and Food Security' Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113, 2, 298-303.
Száz, D. and Horváth, G., 2018. Success of sky-polarimetric Viking navigation: revealing the chance Viking sailors could reach Greenland from Norway. Royal Society Open Science, 5(4), p.172187.
Thirslund, S. 1997. Sailing directions of the North Atlantic Viking age (from about the year 860 to 1400). The Journal of Navigation, 50(1), 55-64.
Vésteinsson, O, Church, M. J., Dugmore, A.J., ,McGovern, T.H. and Newton, A.J. 2014 Expensive errors or rational choices: the pioneer fringe in Late Viking Age Iceland. European Journal of Post-Classical Archaeologies 4, 39-69. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
1. Gaining an awareness and experience of all steps of project design.
2. Ability to work independently (practical work, undertaking independent background research).
3. Ability to work as part of a team (practical work, acquiring and graphing data).
4. Experience in field data collection in a range of weather conditions.
5. Oral presentation skills.
6. Advanced written presentation skills.
7. Critical thinking.
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| Special Arrangements |
This course is only available to 4th year students on the Geography (BSc Hons) Degree Programme. |
| Additional Class Delivery Information |
3 x 2 hour lectures plus tutorials and a seminar series.
10 days field work in Iceland during the summer vacation. |
| Keywords | GEGR10072 |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Robert Bingham
Tel: (0131 6)51 4635
Email: r.bingham@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Leigh Corstorphine
Tel: (0131 6)50 9847
Email: lcorstor@ed.ac.uk |
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