Ecology of the past

Lake Bosumtwi. An impact crater created by the collision of a meteorite with Earth nearly 1.1 million years, and subsequently filled with water to form the lake that exists today. The lake is hydrologically isolated, fed only by precipitation falling on the lake and within the crater catchment. Along with the filling with water comes weathering, erosion and resultant sedimentation of the surrounding landscape depositing into the lake.

The lake and its sediment is the focus of the main NERC-funded project (NE/K005294/1) we are working on, was the basis of Lotties PhD (2013), and underpins Adeles current doctoral work. For her doctoral research Lottie used palynological evidence locked within the lake sediment to reconstruct the past 540,000 years of vegetation in and around the Lake Bosumtwi cathcment, providing a framework for our NERC project that is investigating past vegetation transitions in relation to climatic change and attempting to reconstruct past…