Making up new dissertation projects

Quite a lot of students come to the School of Ocean Sciences because they love marine mammals or coral reefs or stuff like that. Not that many come to the School because they love microfossils or the physics of waves or suchlike. So when each year the third year students have to choose a dissertation topic, it is always a bit of a task to make that work. Too many students who want to do something with charismatic megafauna; not enough staff who can supervise that. My topics tends to not be overly popular, but I keep trying to think of something that might attract a fair share of students. This year I decided to throw in climate activism and mass extinctions. It's not directly what my speciality is, but I have tried to offer topics on my speciality and it just doesn't attract enough people. So I'm branching out! I hope it works. I do personally think these are interesting topics, and I know the data is out there. I will know early on in the new academic year what the students think…

Permian–Triassic boundary at Frazer Beach in New South Wales, with the End Permian extinction event located just above the coal layer. By Dippiljemmy - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=102350820