Geochronology: the key to reconstructing recent environmental change
Stephen Gale
Time: 11-12 noon
Venue: M107 Lecture Theatre, Marine Campus
The dramatic environmental changes of the recent past are likely to continue into the future and to have an increasing impact on both the Earth and human society. Our understanding of future environmental conditions is thus critically dependent on our capacity to reconstruct recent environmental change. Fundamental to this is our ability to place the environmental responses of the last half millennium within a reliable chronological framework. Unfortunately, this most recent part of the geological timescale presents us with some of the greatest challenges for dating. With few exceptions, no established geochronometric tool is capable of dating more than a fraction of the recent past at a resolution adequate to tackle the environmental issues of this period. Our approach to this challenge involves refining existing procedures, including lead-210 analysis and event chronostratigraphy. These offer a means of calibrating the high-resolution environmental records of the last few centuries and answering the environmental questions presented by this period.
