Professor of Isotope Geosciences and Director of the Centre of Environmental Geochemistry, Melanie Leng, recently visited the University of Adelaide to discuss an ongoing initiative to investigate climate change in eastern Australia.
Melanie was first approached by the University a few years ago, as there are relatively few geological archives of climate change in Australia, which means researchers tend to rely on short timescale data when looking into past climate.
This includes corals (which can be related to seawater salinity and temperatures) or tree rings (a proxy for rainfall amount). Both corals and trees tend to only live for a few hundred years so the University were keen to develop new records of Australian climate.
The team went on to develop a climate record based on the chemistry (carbon isotope ratios) of the broad-leaved paperbark tree, which they correlated to water stress. As a result of that research, Melanie was invited to return to the University of Adelaide to discuss future collaboration and visit North Stradbroke Island, which was the focus of the original study.
You can read about Melanie's trip on the British Geological Survey blog.
Posted on Wednesday 15th March 2017