MARINE GEOLOGY AND GLACIOLOGY
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PASTFIRE |
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Researchers
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Microscopic charcoal |
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The major aim of this project is to develop a long-term understanding of the spreading importance of fire throughout Europe as a background reference for its role today and in the future. Such perspective is critical since fire is 1) an important agent in ecosystem dynamics throughout Europe and 2) a potentially destructive force. For example, wildfires are a severe hazard in the Mediterranean that cause considerable economic and social devastation. With current predictions suggesting increased fire risk in the near future throughout the Mediterranean region, it is imperative to enhance collective understanding of fire dynamics. In addition, fires in boreal Europe are less frequent, but nevertheless of economic significance. Recent memory and historical records provide only limited insight into the incidence of fire in Europe, necessitating the need for longer-term perspectives that can be used to reconstruct and contrast past fire regimes.
Long-term perspectives will be realized by coring selected lakes or wetlands and extracting microscopic charcoal fragments contained therein. These records will provide insight into the pattern of land-use change through time and will be used to contrast European fire regimes. By focusing on past warm, dry intervals like the mid-Holocene, the charcoal data may be used to assess the potential response of fire to environmental forcing, thus providing insights into possible future fire dynamics and resultant landscape mosaics. The data from this investigation will be integrated into biodiversity management and vegetation distribution models through international collaboration to improve model output and reliability.
Romanian coring site
Edited by:
Niels E. Poulsen, GEUS -
nep@geus.dk
