Welcome to the pages of the Palaeoenvironmental Change Research group. Our work explores the nature and impacts of past environmental and climatic change, and uses a wide range of analytical techniques to reconstrcut past environments. In particular we specialise in working with pollen and microfossils (William Gosling and students), and chemical biomarkers (Alison Blyth and stuents). For example we can use fossil pollen and charcoal recovered from ancient lake sediments to discover vegetation and fire histories, or analyse the plant waxes preserved in cave deposits to reconstruct the plant and soil conditions of the overlying landscape. Most of the work conducted within the research group examines changes during the Quaternary period (last c. 2 million years).

We are particularly interested in using our newly recovered records of past environmental change to improve wider understanding of how ecosystems respond to climate change and the impact of humans on landscapes. It is hoped that this information can be used to inform the development of conservation and development policy.

We currently have active projects in South America, Africa, and South East Asia. For more specific details please visit "Group members" and "Research" pages.

Thanks

William Gosling
Alison Blyth

Septermber 2009

Gosling, W.D., Hanselman, J.A., Knox, C., Valencia, B.G., & Bush, M.B. (2009) Long term drivers of change in Polylepis woodland distribution in the central Andes. Journal of Vegetation Science, on line. doi: 10.1111/j.1654-1103.2009.01102.x http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1111/j.1654-1103.2009.01102.x

July 2009

Dr Alison Blyth has been awarded a £190k research grant by the NERC to investigate terrestrial environmental change in SE Asia and Australsia during the last 50000 years. The project, which has a particular focus on Flores, will use new organic geochemical records preserved in stalagmites to investigate links between vegetation and climate change, and ancient hominid activity in the area.

June 2009

William Gosling has recieved a Royal Society international travel grant to visit Prof. Dan Livingstones laboratory at Duke University for 5 weeks and has had the below paper accepted for publication in the Journal of Vegetation Science - hooray!

Gosling, W.D., Hanselman, J.A., Knox, C., Valencia, B.G., & Bush, M.B. (in press) Long term drivers of change in Polylepis woodland distribution in the central Andes. Journal of Vegetation Science.

May 2009

Emma St Pierre, a 3rd year PhD student from the University of Queensland, Australia is visiting the group during May to undertake analyses of organic matter preserved in a stalagmite from Flores, with the aim of identifying changes in land-use during the past 3 thousand years.

Dr Alison Blyth has been awarded two undergraduate research bursaries for students from University College London to work with the group during the summer. Tom Griffiths, a 2nd Year student will be investigating plant biomarkers in a sediment core from a cave in Vietnam, while Stephanie Robson will be analysing the carbon isotopic composition of organic matter preserved in stalagmites and its relationship to climate. Tom will be funded by the Nuffield Trust, while Stephanie is supported by the British Mass Spectrometry Society.