Thomas Roland

Project Summary

Career

 

  • Associate Research Fellow, University of Exeter (2014-present)

NERC Antarctic Funding Initiative – ‘Terrestrial Holocene climate variability on the Antarctic Peninsula’

 

  • Visiting Researcher, University of Southampton (2014-present)

 

  • Research Fellow, University of Southampton (2012-2014)

NERC-funded PATAGON project – ‘Palaeoclimate reconstructions from Tierra del Fuego to detect land-ocean-atmosphere interactions’

Supervisory Team

Qualifications

 

  • PhD in Geography, University of Exeter (2008-2012)

NERC-funded PhD studentship – ‘Was there a 4.2 kyr event in Great Britain and Ireland? Evidence from the peatland record’. Supervised by Profs. Dan Charman, Chris Caseldine and Chris Turney.

  • MSc in Quaternary Science (Distinction), Royal Holloway and UCL, University of London (2006-2007)

NERC-funded Master’s studentship

Highest average grade and winner of the 2007 Quaternary Science Reviews/Elsevier Prize for Top Student.

  • BSc (Hons.) in Geography (First Class), University of Exeter (2003-2006)

Wider Research Interests

Research interests

  • Peatland ecology and palaeoecology including the analysis of testate amoebae, plant macrofossils and pollen
  • Statistical analysis of palaeoecological data
  • Peatland carbon and nutrient dynamics
  • Late-Quaternary palaeoclimatology
  • Tephrostratigraphy and tephrochronology
  • Age-depth modelling in peatlands (radiocarbon, short-lived radioisotopes and tephra) using a range of statistical techniques
  • Environmental archaeology

 

Research projects

  • ‘Terrestrial Holocene climate variability on the Antarctic Peninsula’

With Dan Charman and Matt Amesbury at the University of Exeter. Funded by the NERC Antarctic Funding Initiative.

Together with colleagues from the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Cambridge, we aim to provide a longer term context for the rapid environmental changes recently witnessed on the Antarctic Peninsula. This involves the analysis of moss bank records using a multi-proxy palaeoecological and geochemical approach (testate amoebae, stable isotopes), supported by radiocarbon, lead-210 and tephra derived chronologies. Visit the project website here.

 

  • ‘Palaeoclimate reconstructions from Tierra del Fuego to detect land-ocean-atmosphere interactions’

With Paul Hughes at University of Southampton. Funded by NERC.

Working with colleagues from the Universities of Aberdeen, Swansea and Plymouth, the PATAGON project aims to develop a new regional network of proxy archives and create quantitative climate reconstructions for southern South America spanning the last ~2000 years, based on the multi-proxy palaeoecological (plant macrofossils, testate amoebae) and geochemical analysis of the Sphagnum-dominated peat deposits of southern Patagonia. Visit the project website here.