Dr Ruth Robinson

Honorary Senior Lecturer

Researcher profile

Email

rajr@st-andrews.ac.uk

Research areas

My research was initially in the area of quantitative sedimentology, using numerical models to understand the controls on grain-size trends in gravel-bed rivers and applying the modeling results and implications to grain-size trends in ancient river systems. In 2000, I started to develop interests in landscape evolution more generally and in trying to constrain surface process rates through numerical age dating techniques, such as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and cosmogenic-ray nuclide dating. Since 2005, I have been working on quantifying the material fluxes and chemistry of the water and sediment transported by the Irrawaddy and Salween rivers of Burma. More recently, our research group has been working with Randy Parrish and Matt Horstwood at NIGL, and Dan Barford at SUERC in East Kilbride, using innovative geochronological methods on detrital minerals to identify the sediment provenance of Cenozoic deposits in central Burma and their exhumation history. This work has demonstrated that the Yarlung Tsangpo river in southern Tibet formerly connected around the eastern syntaxis and drained into the Irrawaddy river in Burma. This connection was broken around 18 Ma during exhumation of the eastern syntaxis and deformation along major shear zones around the syntaxis. 

Selected publications

• Late Quaternary tectonics controlled by fault reactivation. Insights from a local transpressional system in the intermontane Lerma valley, Cordillera Oriental, NW Argentina

  García, V. H., Hongn, F., Yagupsky, D., Pingel, H., Kinnaird, T., Winocur, D., Cristallini, E., Robinson, R. A. J. & Strecker, M. R., Nov 2019, In : Journal of Structural Geology. 128, 103875.

  Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article

• Evolution of the Mozambique Belt in Malawi constrained by granitoid U-Pb, Sm-Nd and Lu-Hf isotopic data

  Manda, B. W. C., Cawood, P. A., Spencer, C. J., Prave, T., Robinson, R. & Roberts, N. M. W., 29 Nov 2018, In : Gondwana Research. In press

  Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article

• Rapid and punctuated Late Holocene recession of Siling Co, central Tibet

  Shi, X., Kirby, E., Furlong, K. P., Meng, K., Robinson, R., Lu, H. & Wang, E., 15 Sep 2017, In : Quaternary Science Reviews. 172, p. 15-31 17 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article

• Landscape response to late Pleistocene climate change in NW Argentina: sediment flux modulated by basin geometry and connectivity

  Schildgen, T. F., Robinson, R. A. J., Savi, S., Phillips, W. M., Spencer, J. Q. G., Bookhagen, B., Scherler, D., Tofelde, S., Alonso, R. N., Kubik, P. W., Binnie, S. A. & Strecker, M. R., Feb 2016, In : Journal of Geophysical Research - Earth Surface. 121, 2, p. 392-414 23 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article

• Fluvio-deltaic avulsions during relative sea-level fall

  Nijhuis, A. G., Edmonds, D. A., Caldwell, R. L., Cederberg, J. A., Slingerland, R. L., Best, J. L., Parsons, D. R. & Robinson, R. A. J., Aug 2015, In : Geology. 43, 8, p. 719-722 4 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article

• Holocene slip rate along the Gyaring Co Fault, central Tibet

  Shi, X., Kirby, E., Robinson, R. A. J., Furlong, K. & Wang, E., 2014, In : Geophysical Research Letters.

  Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article

• Large rivers and orogens: The evolution of the Yarlung Tsangpo?Irrawaddy system and the eastern Himalayan syntaxis

  Robinson, R. A. J., Brezina, C. A., Parrish, R., Horstwood, M., Win Oo, N., Bird, M. I., Thein, M., Walters, A., Oliver, G. J. H. & Zaw, K., Jul 2014, In : Gondwana Research. 25, 1, p. 112-121

  Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article

• Mass-balance constraints on stratigraphic interpretation of linked alluvial-coastal-shelfal deposits from source to sink: example from Cretaceous Western Interior Basin, Utah and Colorado, U.S.A.

  Hampson, G. J., Duller, R. A., Petter, A. L., Robinson, R. A. J. & Allen, P. A., Nov 2014, In : Journal of Sedimentary Research. 84, 11, p. 935-960 26 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article

• Towards successful OSL sampling strategies in glacial environments: deciphering the influence of depositional processes on bleaching of modern glacial sediments from Jostedalen, Southern Norway

  King, G. E., Robinson, R. A. J. & Finch, A. A., 1 Apr 2014, In : Quaternary Science Reviews. 89, p. 94-107

  Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article

• Understanding processes of sediment bleaching in glacial settings using a portable OSL reader

  King, G., Sanderson, D. C. W., Robinson, R. A. J. & Finch, A. A., 2014, In : BOREAS. 43, 4, p. 955-972 18 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal ? Article

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