Centre for Quaternary Research (CQR)

Description

The Quaternary is a geological time period covering the last 2.6 million years, up to and including the present, and is characterised by cycles of long term and abrupt climate change, leading to repeated glaciations followed by retreat. It is also the period in which the human genus evolved and the human species appeared.

The Quaternary has become a focus of intensive academic study and he Centre for Quaternary Research (CQR) is one of the leading centres study of the interaction between climates, environments, people and other biota within the Quaternary. The Centre’s research, which covers the last 2.6 million years of Earth’s history, aims to understand environmental, human and biotic responses to past changes in climate. These data allow scholars to test models and concepts relating to the drivers of past changes, and to infer likely responses to future climate changes and environmental impacts of an anthropogenically warmed world.

To gain an understanding of past changes, CQR members: (i) produce high resolution records of climates and environments (particularly from lakes which can preserve seasonally or annually resolved records); (ii) generate new models for the chronology and nature of early human and animal dispersal and behaviour; (iii) work across glacial, fluvial, marine and aeolian systems to quantify past landscape responses to climate change and (iv) apply the knowledge gained to present-day ecosystem management issues (e.g. the role of fire and the advisability of “rewilding”), industrial agenda and policy development for the benefit of a range of stakeholders (notably Defra).

The aim of the CQR is to promote interdisciplinary research based on three themes of major importance for understanding Quaternary environmental change: 1) the dynamics of global change; 2) the human dimension of environmental change; and 3) advances in geochronology.

Since its inception the CQR has attracted funding from an increasingly diverse range of sources (NERC, AHRC, ESRC, Leverhulme Trust, EC Framework Programs, British Academy). Major research partnerships and initiatives have been forged in the UK and overseas, which are fostering important advances in understanding Quaternary landscape evolution, abrupt climate change, quantitative palaeoclimate reconstruction, geochronology, biostratigraphy, Palaeolithic and environmental archaeology. The CQR has also benefited from recent £1.5M SRIF investment in laboratory refurbishment that has enhanced the centre’s research capabilities in: OSL dating, tephrochronology, analytical chemistry, soil micromorphology and the analysis of varved sediments.

The Centre’s research into the mechanisms, expression, and response to abrupt climate changes focuses on terrestrial environments and primarily addresses the human and environmental impact of abrupt climate changes during the Quaternary period. Such events are of current concern because they can affect all aspects of human life.

CQR staff members teach throughout the undergraduate physical geography curriculum, including third year specialist option courses that provide an important link between the research and teaching roles of academic staff in the centre.

The Centre runs the MSc in Quaternary Science. The course annually recruits c. 20 students, 65% of whom continue to PhD training. This course provides comprehensive postgraduate training on the processes of past environmental change, confronting some of the most profound issues of today.

The CQR is also part of the London NERC Doctoral Training Partnership, involving University College London, Kings College, Queen Mary, Brunel, Birkbeck, the Natural History Museum, the Institute of Zoology and Kew. Thirty-five studentships are available annually.