This research is the first study to use organisms of high trophic level as palaeoenvironmental indicators, as sharks are virtually unique amongst vertebrates in yielding statistically large numbers of specifically identifiable remains. In order to establish the diversity and spatial variations of the elasmobranch faunas, sediment from a number of well-defined time-planes during critical intervals of the sea-level rise are being sampled.
Localities within the UK include the Anglo-Paris Basin, the North Sea Basin and the intervening shallows of the East Midlands Shelf.