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Dr Alison Halton

Lab Manager Microbiology

STEM Professional Services

alison.halton@open.ac.uk

Biography

I am the Microbiology Lab Manager, within the school of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, STEM Faculty. My role is to lead the lab support team assisting users of the lab area and take the lead on H&S within the lab areas.

My background is geology and geochemistry, having worked in the labs in EEES at the OU for since finishing my PhD in 2011. After supervising noble gas geochemistry labs and a secondment as Lab Manager for Life, Health and Chemical Sciences (2024) I moved into a H&S support role and now into this role as Lab Manager for Microbiology.

I am a Biological Safety Officer, Radiation Protection Supervisor and Laser Protection Supervisor and have completed a a Nebosh General Certificate in Occupational Heath and Safety (2019) and a Biosafety Practitioner Level 1 course (BTI, 2025)

PhD Student Supervision

Sander Hoogendoorn: Completed 2024

Simone Cogliati: Completed 2019

Eleni Wood: Completed 2019

Previous Research

2011 – 2013: Project Officer The Open University, Timing of volcanism and intrusive activity in and around the Faroe Islands
PhD 2011, The Open University “PhD: Paleocene-Eocene Time-Stratigraphic Calibration in the North Atlantic Igneous Province with Focus on the Faroes-Shetland Basin Area”

Publications

Journal Article

Birth, life and death of the Devonian Chaitenia back-arc along the Southwestern Gondwanan margin (southern Chile) (2026)

Emplacement history of the Central Anatolian Ophiolites: insights from the Felahiye Ophiolite in Central Türkiye (2025)

Evidence for long-lived (>100 Myr) continental intraplate volcanism: Mongolia since the last ocean closure (2024)

Allanite U–Pb dating places new constraints on the high‐pressure to high‐temperature evolution of the deep Himalayan crust (2024)

New evidence for the presence of the Inner Tauride Ocean: Lithological, geochronological and P-T correlations with the Tavşanlı and Afyon zones of Central Anatolia (Türkiye) (2023)

Late Cretaceous – Paleogene tectonothermal evolution of the Akdağ Massif in the central anatolian crystalline complex (northern Kayseri, central Turkey) (2023)

Geochronology and geochemistry of the South Scotia Ridge: Miocene island arc volcanism of the Scotia Sea (2021)

The ⁴⁰Ar–³⁹Ar dating and geochemistry of the Carpathian C1 obsidians (Zemplín, Slovakia) (2021)

Tracking the behaviour of persistently degassing volcanoes using noble gas analysis of Pele's hairs and tears: A case study of the Masaya volcano (Nicaragua) (2021)

Expanding the toolbox for dating basaltic lava sequences: ⁴⁰Ar–³⁹Ar dating of silicic volcanic glass from interbeds (2021)

Structural and metamorphic inheritance controls strain partitioning during orogenic shortening (Kalak Nappe Complex, Norwegian Caledonides) (2020)

Oligocene deformation of the Chuandian terrane in the SE margin of the Tibetan Plateau related to the extrusion of Indochina (2020)

Simultaneous and extensive removal of the East Asian lithospheric root (2020)

Evidence for southward subduction of the Mongol-Okhotsk oceanic plate: Implications from Mesozoic adakitic lavas from Mongolia (2020)

Geochronology of volcanically associated hydrocarbon charge in the pre-salt carbonates of the Namibe Basin, Angola (2020)

The lawsonite-glaucophane blueschists of Elba Island (Italy) (2019)

Volcanic constraints on the unzipping of Africa from South America: Insights from new geochronological controls along the Angola margin (2019)

Widespread tephra dispersal and ignimbrite emplacement from a subglacial volcano (Torfajökull, Iceland) (2019)

New ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dating of the Antrim Plateau Volcanics, Australia: clarifying an age for the eruptive phase of the Kalkarindji continental flood basalt province (2018)

Argon redistribution during a metamorphic cycle: Consequences for determining cooling rates (2016)

Argon behaviour in an inverted Barrovian sequence, Sikkim Himalaya: the consequences of temperature and timescale on ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar mica geochronology (2015)

Eocene volcanism in offshore southern Baffin Bay (2015)

Timing and conditions of peak metamorphism and cooling across the Zimithang Thrust, Arunachal Pradesh, India (2014)

Observation of centimetre-scale argon diffusion in alkali feldspars: implications for ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar thermochronology (2014)

Presentation / Conference

Noble gas behaviour in pumice: Implications for volcanic degassing (2020)

Noble gases: A tool to track the degassing of active volcanic systems (2017)

Understanding the degassing of young volcanic systems using noble gases (2017)

STAMP across the Eastern Himalaya: ages and stages of burial, transformation and early exhumation (2013)

High resolution determination of orogenic cooling rates: an eastern Himalayan example (2013)

Thesis

Paleocene-Eocene time-stratigraphic calibration in the North Atlantic igneous province with focus on the Faroes-Shetland basin area (2010)

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