December 20, 2018
I am pleased to announce the opening up of a new DPhil position at the University of Oxford Department of Earth Sciences that I will be involved with. The main supervisor for the project is Prof. Tamsin Mather and the position is part of her recently funded European Research Council project. The project is entitled “Sniffing out global volcanic fingerprints using mercury in Quaternary sedimentary records”.
For full details of the project click here and how to apply click here.
July 5, 2016
March 29, 2013
Full time Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Temporary contract for 36 months, £27,854 – £36,298
Department of Environment, Earth & Ecosystems, Faculty of Science, The Open University
Closing date : 25/04/2013
The PDRA project will descover more about past vegetation and climate change in Lake Bosumtwi (Ghana)
We are seeking a PDRA to study past climate and vegetation change in tropical West Africa as part of the NERC-funded “500,000 years of solar irradiance, climate and vegetation changes” project. You will join a multidisciplinary collaborative research team and will work with an international network of project partners. The project will utilise cutting-edge organic geochemical techniques to generate the longest continuous record of fossil pollen chemistry change. The study will build upon previous research into the sediments recovered from Lake Bosumtwi (Ghana). The data generated will shed new light on the role of climate in driving vegetation change in the tropics.
You will already hold a PhD, or be near to completing your PhD, in a relevant scientific discipline with a background in the Earth or Environmental sciences. You must have substantial experience of organic geochemistry or tropical palynology, with well-developed self-management skills and the ability to prioritise effectively.
The PDRA will work with an associated PhD student looking at modern pollen-vegetation relationships in the same region.
Co-Investigators:
Dr Barry Lomax (University of Nottingham)
Dr Wesley Fraser (Oxford Brookes University)
Project partners:
Prof . Yadvinder Malhi (University of Oxford)
Prof. Mark Sephton (Imperial College London)
Dr Tim Shanahan (University of Texas, Austin)
Dr Stephen Abu-Bredu (Forestry Research Institute of Ghana)
For further particulars click here.
For information on how to apply click here visit The Open University jobs web site.
The PDRA will be part of an international team; partners based at University of Nottingham, Oxford Brooks University, Imperial College London, Oxford University, University of Texas at Austin and the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana
February 20, 2013
William Gosling pollen trapping in west Africa. A studentship on the new grant will investigate modern pollen-vegeation relationships from tropical West Africa.
I am delighted to be able to report that the PCRG has recently obtained a NERC standard grant to investigate “500,000 years of solar irradiance, climate and vegetation changes” (NE/K005294/1).
Investigators on the project are:
Supported by project partners:
Much thanks to the many people who have supported and helped us in the development of this proposal. Now time to do some fun science…
January 9, 2013
Two NERC algorithm funded PhD studentships are currently available with the PCRG. The projects are focused on understanding past environmental change in west tropical Africa and Amazonian-Andean Ecuador. Both projects will involve field work and build on on-going research within the lab.
Closing date 31/01/2013
One project will work on samples collected during fieldwork in 2012 near Papallacta (Ecuador).
Further project details and how to apply below…
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April 2, 2012
In March the Palaeoenvironmental Change Research Group (PCRG) have been involved with data collection in the labs, training, fieldwork planning (and un-planning) and outreach.
Two notable pieces of pollen data collection have made significant progress this month: 1) Hayley has been working at collecting data to establish what is a suitable pollen count size to assess vegetation change within her highly diverse Amazonina samples, and 2) Lottieis on to about the last dozen samples to complete the overview of 500,000 years of pollen from Lake Bosumtwi (Ghana); an amazing pollen record and an excellent research effort which will be the cornerstone of her PhD thesis! More soon on both these pollen stories as they unfold… In addition, I am pleased to report that the list of taxa within our pollen reference collection has finally been fully digitized – Thank you Jason; details of the >3000 taxa collection will soon be available on the lab web pages.
Gigantic Prasinophytes (>100 microns)
Also in the lab: Alice Kennedy, working on ‘deep time’ palaeoecology, has identified a bloom in the foraminifera Reinholdella macfadyeni and gigantic Prasinophytes associate with marine annoxia in sediments from Yorkshire. Will be interesting to find out what these all mean at the next lab meeting!
At the beginning of March four of us (Frazer, Hayley, Lottie and myself) attended a First Aid for field work training course run by Mediact. The course was excellent with plenty of useful information and the opportunity to practice techniques such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (on dummies) and bandaging (on each other). Unfortunately we will have to wait to practice any of the techniques in the field as our planned trip to Ecuador looks likely to be postponed due to injury to one of our members! Get well soon Frazer 🙂 On the up side this should allow me to catch up with the piles of papers I should be writing.
The month finished with an exciting outreach event. I was asked to present our research to the Oxford Geology Group. The event was hosted at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. It was an excellent day of talks and it was fun to discuss our research with interested people.
January 10, 2012
PAGES (Past Global Changes)
Focus 4: (Past) Human-Climate-Ecosystem Interaction (PHAROS)
Biodiversity Theme Workshop at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford (9-11 Jan)
Using fossil records to map potential threats, opportunities and likely future developments for biodiversity and ecosystem services
Organised by: Dr. Elizabeth Jeffers, Dr. Shonil Bhagwat and Prof. Kathy Willis
This small (about 30 attendees) workshop brought together academic researchers mainly working in the field of past environmental change to discuss the use, and potential use, of data sets in understanding the key environmental challenges facing society. The bulk of the discussion took place with reference to ‘ecosystem services’. Three types of ecosystem service were mentioned early on for which it was thought that the fossil record can provide a unique long term perspective (beyond historical records): 1) provisioning services (e.g. food, timber, biofuels), 2) regulating services (e.g. carbon), and 3) cultural services (e.g. national parks, tourism).
Below I will summarize some of the issues discussed. Please note that this does not cover the full range of discussion or all of the many high quality contributions. For further information click here to visit the workshop web page.
Ecology of the past 