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T9 Environmental History and Human Impact on coastal Peat Deposits A. Waitz¹ ¹Department of Geography, School of Natural Science, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland The rich peat deposits in Ireland have long been used to reconstruct past environments and palynological research reaches back to the 1940s with the pioneering work carried out by Jessen (1949). While early research focused on relative changes in species abundance, improvements in dating technologies and interests in human-environment interactions have shifted the focus of work to more interdisciplinary areas. This PhD project focuses on peat deposits located at or below sea-level, giving a unique insight into the development of coastal vegetation. Furthermore, the research locations are associated with human habitation sites allowing for the assessment of human impacts on coastal areas. As erosion is a major concern in these coastal settings, research is of vital importance as archives are prone to destruction by storm events and long term sea-level rise. At Tralong Bay, Co. Cork, Ireland over 6m of sediment cores were recovered from the intertidal peat deposits, located in close proximity to a Bronze Age Stone Circle and hut site at Drombeg. Radiocarbon dates were obtained to give a time frame to the deposits, which place the oldest at 5704 ±46 BP. The samples were then processed in the laboratory according to standard procedures (Faegi and Iversen, 1989) and a palynological investigation as well as LOI were carried out. Preliminary results show a distinct shift in vegetation 3800 BP from Quercus and Alnus rich woodland to a flora dominated by Phragmites, indicating a notable shift in hydrological regime. Many charcoal rich layers, as early as 5704 ± 46 BP, point towards human impact on the environment long before the Drombeg settlement, dated to ± 1400 BP (McAulay and Watts, 1961). Crypto-tephra analysis will be carried out on the Tralong Bay sediment cores and it is hoped to locate some tephra horizons within the deposits, in particular Hekla 4 (± 3844 BP) and Hekla eruptions within the last century (Lawson et al. 2012). The identification of established eruption events would not only further constrain the radiocarbon dates obtained but would also allow for the placement of the deposits within the wider European context. Keywords: vegetation history; coastal peatland; human impact; pollen; Holocene; cryptotephra Faegi, K. and Iversen, J. (1989) Textbook of Pollen Analysis. Chichester: Wiley Jessen, K. (1949) Studies in the late Quaternary deposits and flora-history of Ireland. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 52B pp. 85-290. Lawson, I.T., Swindles, G.T., Plunkett, G., and Greenberg, D. (2012) The spatial distribution of Holocene cryptotephras in north-west Europe since 7 ka: implications for understanding ash fall events from Icelandic eruptions. Quaternary Science Reviews, 41 pp.57-66. McAuley, I.R. and Watts, W.A. (1961) Dublin Radiocarbon Dates I. Radiocarbon. 3 pp. 26-38
T2 Cryptotephra records as archives of volcanic ash cloud events over northern Europe E.J. Watson 1 *, G.T.Swindles 1 , I.T. Lawson 1 and I.Savov 2 1 School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds 2 School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds Improved knowledge of past volcanic ash cloud occurrence will greatly enhance our understanding of the future risk posed by such events, information which is of importance to modellers as well as the insurance and aviation industries. Not all volcanic eruptions result in ash clouds which are large enough to cause disruption more than a few hundred kilometres from the volcano. Therefore our understanding of past volcanic ash dispersal must be based directly on records of ash, not simply on records of volcanic eruption frequency. Layers of volcanic ash (tephra) are found in a variety of depositional environments. In distal areas far from the volcanic source they form sparse horizons which are not visible to the human eye. These ‘cryptotephra’ horizons can often be linked to source eruptions based on their chemical properties, which reflect the composition of magma during an eruption. Tephra records can therefore provide an insight into the reoccurrence intervals and nature of volcanic ash deposition events (Swindles et al., 2011). This project aims to build a new statistical model of volcanic ash deposition over northern Europe, where most Holocene tephra layers originate from Icelandic sources. This aim will be partly achieved through the development of new high-quality tephrostratigraphic records from across Europe, addressing temporal and spatial gaps in existing Holocene cryptotephra records (Lawson et al., 2012). Patterns of volcanic ash deposition are influenced by the prevailing wind and precipitation patterns at the time of eruption. As a result ash clouds can influence parts of Europe, rather than falling as a ‘blanket’ across the continent. Therefore comprehensive spatial coverage of records across Europe is required to minimise the risk of undiscovered Holocene tephras which could have an influence on the reoccurrence model. Electron Probe Microanalysis of individual glass shards will be used alongside Laser Ablation ICP-MS and stratigraphic information to correlate the cryptotephra layers with volcanic eruptions. An additional aim is to examine the extent to which cryptotephra horizons are accurate records of ash-fall events: for example, to what extent do ash concentrations in records reflect ash concentrations in the air. Finally new probabilistic and Bayesian modelling techniques will be investigated. Although the project is in its early stages, preliminary findings include multiple tephra horizons in Arctic Sweden (an area previously unexamined for tephras). Fieldwork for a within-site variability study has been conducted and preliminary results suggest tephra concentrations vary significantly across the site, indicating peatland processes impact upon tephra following deposition. Keywords: cryptotephra; ash clouds; Europe; Bayesian modelling
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QRA@50: Quaternary Revolutions QRA
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Conference Programme Wednesday 8th
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General Notes Exhibitors A small nu
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QRA50: Top 50 UK Quaternary Sites N
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THEME 1: CAUSES OF CLIMATE CHANGE C
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THEME 2: MEASURING TIME Radiocarbon
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THEME 3: MEASURING AND UNDERSTANDIN
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THEME 4: MODELLING THE EARTH SYSTEM
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modeling context, or in the context
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THEME 5: ICE SHEET DYNAMICS Time, t
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THEME 7: THE OCEANS The Oceans, CO
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THEME 8: TERRESTRIAL STRATIGRAPHY A
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THEME 9: PALAEOECOLOGY Conservation
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THEME 9: PALAEOECOLOGY Beetles, bon
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THEME 10: HUMAN ORIGINS, ENVIRONMEN
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THEME 11: INSIGHTS FROM GENETICS In
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T2 TRACEing Tephra Horizons in Nort
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T5 The Hebrides Ice Stream (HIS) an
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T9 Formation and Cultural Use of We
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T8 Pleistocene landscape change at
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T5 Reconstruction of ice-sheet chan
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T3 Spatial and temporal variability
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T5 Glacial geomorphology of the Inn
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T2 Revolution and evolution: 35 yea
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T2 Improving surface exposure ages
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T9 The Anthropogenic Element in the
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Fraser, W.T., Watson, J.S., Sephton
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T9 Island Evolution: a ‘front-lin
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T9 Biome dynamics in the Ohrid Basi
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T5 The Moffatdale RSF cluster, Sout
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T11 Combining palynology and ecolog
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Figure 1: The palm swamp forest at
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T3 SCOPSCO Lake Ohrid deep drilling
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T3 Quaternary revelations: the role
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T8 Late-Middle to Late Pleistocene
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T9 Climate forcing of mammoth range
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T8 Svalbard surging glacier landsys
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T9 Late - glacial/Holocene vegetati
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