After the palaeo-environmental study of the march of Tasdon and after the one conducted Rue de la Fabrique, Amélie is conducting a new, extensive palaeo-environmental study in La Rochelle (France), based on geotechnical boreholes taken in and around the Medieval tower Saint-Nicolas. The tower is currently under work to consolidate its base and geotechnical cores up to over 30m deep have been taken. We have access to most of the cores which constitues a unique opportunity to describe, sample and analyse the alluvial deposits from the harbour and reconstruct the evolution of the bay.
Various analysis will be undertaken in the next months: lithostratigraphy, LOI, diatoms, ostracods and forams, pollen, C14 and pXRF. The main research objective of this study is to investigate the impact of the development of La Rochelle on the environment. An innovative approach will be implemented by scanning the whole alluvial sequence from the harbour with pXRF to measure the impact of the city of the sediment chemistry, targeting in particular heavy metal pollution and other chemicals resulting from human activities released into the environment over centuries.
Want to do some cores on your site? Contact us for a quote!
