Agenda

Prof. Silvia Frisia, Dept. Earth Sciences, SELS, The University of Newcastle - AUSTRALIA

Abstract:
Our understanding of the causes of global, hemispheric, regional climate changes and their impact on the environment rely on the accuracy of ages put on archives of proxy data. In addition, we must enlarge the pool of existing proxies to encompass processes in environments that have been, to date, difficult to access, such as the high-altitude and high latitude subglacial ecosystems. Carbonates formed in high altitude caves and subglacially provide climate and environmental information on extreme environments through their physical, chemical and biological properties. Techniques such as Laser Ablation Ion Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry, synchrotron-radiation based elemental mapping, ancient DNA extraction and Electron Microscopy allow gaining new insight on coeval temperature-dependent soil processes and hydrology of high latitude and high altitude environments. Our research established sulphate concentration as new proxy of volcanism encrypted in carbonates, which opens the possibility to correlate precisely continental archives such as lake deposits, ice cores and speleothems.