Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/P020046/1
Quaternary Palaeoecology Advanced Training Short Course
Training Grant Award
- Lead Supervisor:
- Dr T C B Hill, The Natural History Museum, Earth Sciences
- Grant held at:
- The Natural History Museum, Earth Sciences
- Science Area:
- Atmospheric
- Earth
- Freshwater
- Marine
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Freshwater
- ENRIs:
- Biodiversity
- Environmental Risks and Hazards
- Global Change
- Natural Resource Management
- Pollution and Waste
- Science Topics:
- Landscape & Environ. Archaeol.
- Science-Based Archaeology
- Ancient DNA
- Ancient grains
- Animal domestication
- Early farming
- Environmental transitions
- Extinction
- Ice ages
- Megafauna
- Neolithic period
- Palaeoanthropology
- Prehistoric humans
- Sea level history
- Climate change
- Fossil record
- Lake sediments
- Marine sediments
- Palaeo proxies
- Palaeoclimatology
- Palaeoecology
- Palaeogeology
- Quaternary climate change
- Sea level history
- Palaeoenvironments
- Climate change
- Dating
- Diatom record
- Holocene
- Interglacials
- Macrofossils
- Marine sediments
- Microfossils
- Ocean drilling
- Palaeoecology
- Peat bogs
- Pollen analysis
- Sea level history
- Quaternary Science
- Sediment coring
- Earth Surface Processes
- Past environments
- Peatlands
- Sea level variation
- Abstract:
- The Quaternary Palaeoecology short course is aimed at postgraduate students and early career researchers. This course provides students with the opportunity to develop a grounding in the key biological indicators used to elucidate past environmental change. Palaeoenvironmental research is of critical importance due to the relative lack of reliable documented climate records predating the 20th century. This has resulted in the use of biological climate 'proxies', often preserved within sedimentary archives, to provide qualitative and quantitative reconstructions of the past, in terms of climate and environmental conditions. As students are now expected to work with complex multi-source palaeoecological datasets, where the subsequent analysis and interpretation of such empirical data will vary considerably depending on its provenance, there is a need for palaeoecologists to be suitably trained in the application of a wide range of proxy indicators. This course will therefore provide an overview of key taxonomic groups often utilised in palaeoecological studies, with a focus on terrestrial (freshwater) environments, but the marine realm will also be considered. The course content will introduce a selection of the following taxonomic groups: beetles, chironomids, diatoms, pollen, testate amoebae and vertebrates, and describe how their presence can be used as indicators of past environments. As the biological proxies within Quaternary strata are composed of a combination of extinct and extant species, the Natural History Museum is ideally suited to the delivery of this course.The staff involved in the Quaternary Palaeoecology NERC ATSC have successfully delivered the short course for three consecutive years, using the repeated courses to refine and improve the course content and associated training outcomes. Its success lies in the dedicated course staff who are experts in the field of Quaternary environments, combined with the state of the art facilities and ground-breaking research activities being undertaken at the Museum, which ensure the course content remains up-to-date and relevant. This, when combined with world-renowned collections underpinned by Museum's leadership in taxonomy and systematics, ensures the NHM training offer is unique and confirms the NHM is ideally positioned to continue to deliver an ATSC in Quaternary Palaeoecology. Each day of the course will be dedicated to a different taxonomic group, with morning lectures reviewing taxonomy of the group under consideration, before focus turns to the environmental gradients associated with palaeoecological reconstructions. The afternoon sessions are then dedicated to the provision of bespoke laboratory microscopy and deskbased activities. During these practical sessions, there will be an initial focus on developing the student's scholarship in taxonomy. As part of this exercise, students will be introduced to the NHM's world renowned reference collections and use these valuable resources when learning the taxonomic skills required to differentiate between species. This will then be followed by sessions in applied palaeoecology, where students will gain experience in the application of that taxonomic group to palaeoenvironmental reconstructions.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/P020046/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Doctoral Training
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Advanced Training
This training grant award has a total value of £48,578
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Total - Other Costs |
|---|
| £48,578 |
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