Three PhD Studentships Available!
The Institute for the Environment (Brunel University, West London, UK) will
be offering 3 PhD studentships for the coming academic year.
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Topic for one of them:
"Reconstruction of past environments from palynological study of lacustrine
sediment in the Kenya rift, focussing on the impact of the mega-Toba
(Western Sumatra) eruption on human evolution 71,000 years ago"
The overall aim of this project is to evaluate the global environmental
consequences of a major volcanic eruption. The eruption was that of Toba
volcano in northern Sumatra ~71 000 years ago. This eruption is widely
regarded as the largest in the last two million years, and would have had
significant effects upon the global climate. It took place at a critical
time in human cultural evolution, and a prolonged period of global cooling
triggered by the eruption may have caused widespread extinctions of the
biota, and a severe reduction in the human population. The ensuing social
and economic adaptations by human societies to this extreme event may have
paved the way for subsequent migrations out of Africa into Europe and Asia
and facilitated the transition from Middle to Later Stone Age culture and
technology. A growing body of genetic evidence, notably from mitochondrial
DNA, has revealed a human population bottleneck between ~100 and ~50 ka.
During this interval the total world population was reduced to possibly
10,000-20,000 young males and females. Ambrose hypothesised that: ³Six
years of volcanic winter followed by 1000 years of the coldest, driest
climate of the late Quaternary, may have caused low primary productivity and
famine, and thus may have had a substantial impact on human populations².
The East African Rift is an ideal natural laboratory where to search for any
trace of the Youngest Toba Tephra, especially in the lake basins of the
Kenya Rift where we have located many scores of archaeological occurrences
(task of partner). The shallow lakes of the southern and central Kenya Rift
are highly sensitive to even quite minor climatic fluctuations. The lake
sediments, often diatomites, contain a detailed record of past volcanic
eruptions in the form of interstratified ash bands. The ashes can be
fingerprinted using geochemical methods and dated very precisely using
argon/argon dating techniques (task of our partners). The diatomites also
contain pollen grains and other organic-walled microfossils (e.g., green
algae, cyanobacteria) indicative of local (aquatic and terrestrial) and
regional vegetation. The key aim of his studentship is to test the
hypothesis of volcanic winter by high resolution sampling of diatomites in
Kenya for pollen analysis.
Combined studies of palynomorphs and diatoms (the latter is the role of our
partners) are still relatively rare and offer a fruitful avenue for
reconstructing local and regional environmental changes, including climate.
This project uses this approach to provide primary palaeo-environmental data
against which to compare the archaeological record and to seek evidence of
any correlative ecological, demographic and cultural changes.
Fieldwork funded by the Australian Research Council, a grant obtained by
Prof. Martin Williams, University of Adelaide, a geomorphologist of
international standard with African experience. The other partners in this
project are Prof. Stan Ambrose, archaeologist from Ilinois, Professor Alan
Deino, a geochronologist in the Berkeley Geochronology Center, and Dr John
Tibby works in the Adelaide University Diatom Laboratory,
Starting date: between Sept and Dec 05.
Fieldwork six weeks in June 2006.
Duration: 3 yrs
Preference given to a student who has a master in palynology.
Supervisors for the palynology: Professor Suzanne Leroy and Professor John
Dodson
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The studentships will be available to home/EU students and will cover the
cost of fees and living (final figure to be confirmed shortly). Please visit
our research pages ( www.brunel.ac.uk/about/acad/ife/ ) to view the research
areas we specialise in and contact the lead researcher in that area for more
details.
Institute for the Environment , Brunel University
Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1895 266515 - Fax: +44 (0)1895 269761
Head of Institute: Professor John Dodson
For all enquiries, please contact Shona Beesley
Or alternatively directly the main supervisor:
Prof. Suzanne A. G. Leroy,
Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Brunel University, Uxbridge,
Middlesex UB8 3PH, (West London), UK.
[log in to unmask],
NEW: direct: +44-1895-266087; fax: +44-1895-269736, secr: +44-1895-266543
homepage: www.brunel.ac.uk/about/acad/ges/staff/suzanne_leroy/
ICSU Dark Nature: www.mun.ca/canqua/ICSU-DN/
IGCP 490: www.mun.ca/canqua/igcp490/
EU-RELIEF project: http://eost.u-strasbg.fr/recherche/projet/RELIEF.html
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