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The nature of ancient environments can be inferred using:
- The paleoecology (i.e. fossil ecology) of fossil organisms that
have close living relatives.
- The physical properties and structure of sedimentary rock layers
(strata).
- Chemical signals preserved within strata and fossils.
Knowledge of ancient environments and environmental change is important
for many branches of geology, such as oil and gas exploration, studies
of climate change and research into the causes and effects of evolution.
Over many decades, scientists have developed a broad overview of
the environmental history and record of global change in the New
Zealand, southwestern Pacific and Antarctic regions.
Current research spans a range of time and geographic scales
and lies within the Global
Change Through Time Programme. There are three major components
of this research:
- Studies of changes in flora, fauna, sediments and climate over
the past two million years - a period of dramatic climatic instability
characterised by ice ages and interglacial warm periods. This
research links study of the Wanganui Basin sedimentary succession,
arguably the most complete onshore record of Plio-Pleistocene
sedimentation in the world, with records recovered from drill
cores of sediments and glacier ice
- Studies of the Antarctic ice sheet over the past 40 million
years: how and when it developed and how quickly it has expanded
and contracted. The Antarctic is a major driver of global climate
and sea level change. This project is examining records of both
Antarctic causes of change, and the effects of this change in
New Zealand. A major new, multinational Antarctic margin drilling
programme, ANDRILL, will be supported through this project.
- Studies of major and abrupt intervals of global warming and
greenhouse climate over the past 65 million years. Such intervals
are important analogues for projected future warming caused by
human-induced release of greenhouse gases.
For more information contact
us here
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