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Deepti Bisht M.Sc. M.Phil

Image as described adjacent

Cambridge Quaternary
Department of Geography
University of Cambridge
Downing Place
Cambridge CB2 3EN
England, UK

Phone +44 1223 339751
Fax +44 1223 333392

E-mail db318@cam.ac.uk


Current Project

Deepti started her PhD at the department of Geography under the supervision of Professor P.L. Gibbard and Dr D. Rust (Brunel University) in October 2005.

Her PhD project is entitled 'Structure and Geomorphology, SE Dinarides, Croatia'. The general aims of the project are to understand the evolution of a thrust fault dominated landscape in a vertical plane, effects of progressive collision on the mechanics of uplift of the footwall of a major thrust and the establishment of the vertical coastal dynamics of the region around Ston, SE Dinarides, Croatia.

The SE Coastal Dinarides are seismically the most active parts of the Eastern Adriatic. The seismicity is of a low magnitude, but continuous. This pattern marks the ongoing collision of the Adriatic plate against the Dinaric Plate.

Ston is located in the region of maximum concentration of current seismicity in the SE Dinarides. The most recent big earthquake in the region with its epicentre at Ston had a magnitude of 6.1. The region of Ston is bounded by the Ploce Dubrovnik Thrust in the North and the South Stonski Thrust in the South. Several small satellite thrusts run parallel to the Ploce Dubrovnik thrust and dictate the current landscape.

She uses digital and field mapping to define the degree of influence of structure on the geomorphology of the region around Ston.
A major part of her project involves the identification and then quantification of the vertical kinetics of the coastal region of Ston using Diatom biostratigraphy through the last 6000 years.

Diatom assemblages are sensitive to salinity changes. Relative uplift or subsidence of a coastline induces changes in these assemblages. Ston is charecterised by coastal marshes which according to bibliological reports have recently emerged. Diatom biostratigraphic study of cores taken from these marshes will help in understanding the vertical kinetics of this part of the Croatian coastline.