Research Professor of Isotope Geology

Crustal Processes Group

I teach field geology at the University of Leicester in the HW Scottish Highlands, and Alps and conduct research across a very diverse range of applications linked by the use of isotope geochronology and geochemistry, primarily using the facilities of the NERC Isotope Geoscience Laboratory (http://www.bgs.ac.uk/nigl/) where I am Director. 

Areas of Expertise:
U-Th-Pb geochronology
Isotope geochemistry and mass spectrometry
Tectonics, structure and evolution of the continental crust
Climate change and tectonics
N American Cordilleran geology
Precambrian geology
Himalayan geology
Calibration of geological time scale
Nuclear chemistry and isotope synthesis
Heavy metal pollution, isotopic studies of metal bioavailability in soils
Depleted uranium and human exposure
Environmental isotope geochemistry
Management of large research groups/facilities

Current Research Focus and Grant projects:

Five recent publications

• Foster, GL, Lunt, DJ, Parrish, R. R.  2010, Mountain uplift and glaciation of North America – A sensitivity study, Climates of the Past,  6, 1–10, 2010. doi:10.5194/cp-6-1-2010
• Parrish, R. R., Arneson, J.Brewer, T., Chenery, S., Lloyd, N., Carpenter, D. 2008. Depleted uranium contamination by inhalation exposure and its detection after >25 years: implications for health assessment. Science of the Total Environment, Science of the Total Environment v. 390, 58-68; doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2007.09.044.
• Chambers, J., R. R. Parrish, T. Argles, N. Harris, and M. Horstwood (2011), A short duration pulse of ductile normal shear on the outer South Tibetan detachment in Bhutan: alternating channel flow and critical taper mechanics of the eastern Himalaya, Tectonics, doi:10.1029/2010TC002784, in press.
• G. Foster, R. R. Parrish, M. S. A. Horstwood, S. Chenery, J. Pyle, & H. D. Gibson.  2004.  The generation of prograde P–T–t points and paths; a textural, compositional, and chronological study of metamorphic monazite.  Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
• Horstwood, M. S. A., Parrish, R. R., Nowell, G. M., & Noble, S. R.  2003.  Accessory mineral U-Th-Pb geochronology by laser-ablation plasma-ionisation multi-collector mass spectrometry (LA-PIMMS).  J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2003, 18, 837 - 846.

Full Publication List