Long-term Environmental Change

Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• A knowledge of key techniques for reconstructing past environments (including stratigraphic description, pollen analysis, loss-on-ignition and mineral magnetism).
• Knowledge of the range of methods used for dating Quaternary deposits.
• An understanding of the nature and timing of major environmental changes over the last 2.6 million years (both regional and global).
• Become acquainted with some biogeographic implications of Quaternary climate change: the historical development of biomes, large-scale ecosystem dynamics, species migration, and extinction.
• Become acquainted with the main arguments relating animal and human development to environmental change in the Quaternary.

GGES2004 will focus on the geological period called the Quaternary - the last 2.6 million years of changes on Earth that includes episodes of repeated glaciation with warmer interludes. The syllabus can be divided into three main parts, and includes a number of lectures, practicals and seminars:

Section 1

Section one provides an introduction to the fundamental principles of Quaternary Science and examines the concepts underlying stratigraphy and correlation before considering different dating techniques used to provide chronologies for individual sediment sequences. Quaternary studies are of limited use without a clear idea of timescales. The ability to estimate rates of change in environmental processes and the return periods of events, as well as to make correlations between events are all vital to Quaternary Science. The module then moves on to discuss the processes involved in the formation of the different types of sediments - the raw materials of Quaternary Science, used to provide evidence for past environmental change. A series of practical sessions will allow first-hand experience of the skills needed to undertake studies of longterm environmental change, bringing together the different fundamental principles. These practicals will lead to the coursework assessment for the module - the interpretation of a Lateglacial peatland site from North Wales (worth 50% of the module assessment).

Section 2

Frequent and dramatic climatic changes are the hallmark of the Quaternary period. This will be explored through the use of sediments, palaeoecology and chronology at a global scale, as well as in our own region of the British Isles and North West Europe. The module considers the important aspects of marine and atmospheric processes as agents of change between glacial and interglacial cycles. Specific focus will be given to the Lateglacial period, the most recent termination from the last glacial stage to our current interglacial (the Holocene), from which rapid climate oscillations are associated with marked biotic and physical changes across the globe, including megafaunal extinctions.

Section 3

This section considers in more detail the second epoch in the Quaternary period – the Holocene. It covers both the major climate changes, of our current interglacial and the reestablishment of the temperate deciduous biome after deglaciation. We will also examine the onset of the destruction of this biome with the transition from hunter-gathers to farming and the the role of Palaeoecology in informing modern conservation efforts to repair ecosystem functions . This last topic will provide the basis for the optional module ' Nature-Based Solutions' in Year 3, that will focus on conservation issues and practices.

Seminar sessions associated with Section 2 and Section 3 will focus on key papers from topics introduced in lectures (may include: Megafaunal Extinction, Wildfires, Meteorite Impacts and Climate Change).

The module will contain a blend of learning activities. There will be c. 14 basic lectures, encompassing the themes noted above. In the first half of the semester we will run practical classes that will allow students to undertake research on a record of long-term environmental change. This will provide training for students interested in undertaking dissertations in a range of topical research themes in this area. In the second half of the semester we will run a seminar class each week, to further develop the content taught in the lectures.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.