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The Leeds scientist ... whose office is Antarctica
In Jane Francis's office, nestling on top of a filing cabinet, is what looks remarkably like a hefty chunk of tree.
But while you can still trace the grain of the wood with your finger, this particular piece of timber is heavier than normal on account of the fact it was turned to stone some time ago.
Oh yes – and it just happens to be 50 million years old.
She brought it back to Leeds from Antarctica, where she spends months at a time collecting fossil samples that might just help predict the fate of our planet.
And while most of us are looking forward to spending our summer holidays on a beach somewhere, Jane is gearing up to travel thousands of miles to a remote island in the icy wastes of the Arctic Circle.
Then, over Christmas she will head back to Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey for what will be her 10th trip.
She is usually flown in by the RAF and then sails aboard HMS Endeavour, the Royal Navy's polar survey ship, before being helicoptered to a remote field camp where she has a few scientists and plenty of penguins for company.
So why on earth does she do it?
Well, as a professor of paleoclimatology at Leeds University, Jane's field of expertise is the study of ancient climates. And it just so happens that there is nowhere better than the coldest places on the planet to do it.
"Apart from the fact that they're fantastic places to go to, the first place that climate changes is in the polar regions," she says.
"That's true now just as it was millions of years ago. So if you want to see the greatest and fastest degree of change, that's where you go."
Jane's work – which is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council – looks at a time when there was no ice in Antarctica. Instead there was a 'greenhouse' climate with high levels of carbon dioxide much like those predicted for our future.
"The Earth was so warm back then that there was no ice and both polar regions were covered in forest.
"When you look at the rocks the most common fossils are chunks of wood from tree trunks and leaves that once grew there.
"Antarctica was the first place to experience the onset of the Ice Age. It's also a continent so there's a huge land of rock underneath the ice sheet.
"The same kind of rock here in Yorkshire would be covered by grass, sheep, buildings and roads so you wouldn't be able to see it but in Antarctica it's just lying there.
"The fossils are quite visible from the surface so you don't actually have to dig very hard to get them out."
These fragments of ancient trees and vegetation have been mineralised and petrified over the course of millions of years.
After bringing them back to her Leeds lab, Jane slices them open with a diamond-tipped saw and puts them under the microscope to examine their cellular structure and identify what type of tree they came from.
Her findings help climate modellers find out more about the climate of the planet in the past, which assists them in their tricky task of predicting what course it will take in the future.
No doubt knowing how valuable her work is helps Jane cope with the extremes of day to day life in some of the world's most inhospitable areas.
Temperatures can plummet to -500 centigrade, which feels 20 degrees colder when the wind chill is taken into account.
There is no hot shower to warm up in and dinner is usually a staple diet of rehydrated spaghetti, potatoes and rice.
But it's not all bad.
"The best thing I like about it is getting away from the office because it's a real retreat," says Jane.
"We have a radio contact with the main base hundreds of miles away once a day so they know we're safe but the rest of the time we're totally isolated.
"So there's no email and no telephones, which is absolutely fantastic. I can just concentrate on three things – the rocks, the weather and what you're going to have for dinner."
Food becomes a major preoccupation during polar expeditions, she says, because you get so hungry all the time. "The cold means you need a lot more calories and it's physically demanding as well, going out walking tens of miles every day for two months. You get pretty fit.
"We eat biscuits, cans of sardines and about 200g of chocolate a day, plus a lot of rehydrated meals. But when you get hungry you'll eat just about anything.
"They're hot and they fill a gap, that's the main thing. Although the Argentinian camp is quite popular; they have steaks and red wine."
And then there are what Jane calls 'those Antarctic moments' when everything seems just perfect.
"The wind drops so it's really quiet and the sun shines so the icebergs glisten. There's a bit of warmth in the air and everything is sparkling.
"That's a definition of tranquillity that you can't find anywhere else on Earth."
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Weather for Leeds
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 10 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
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