Gavin is a sedimentologist whose interests shifted from the recent history of Wellington Harbour (MSc) to the formation of the Great Barrier Reef (PhD) to the history of the Ross Ice Shelf over the last million years or so from sediment cores. Gavin has also spent several years at ANU Canberra on reconstructing the ancient climate history of the Western Pacific region from coral and speleothem (cave deposits) geochemistry, particularly from data gathered in the Indonesian archipelago. His recent work involves reconstructing past temperatures in the McMurdo Sound region during "warm" periods of the last few million years using subtle changes in the chemistry of microscopic shells preserved in the sediment.
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/antarctic/about/staff/gavin-dunbar