Understanding how recent environmental changes such as climate change, pollution and land use changes have impacted natural ecosystems can be challenging. This challenge can be particularly difficult if there is little or no environmental monitoring prior to such impacts occurring. One potential solution is through the use of paleolimnology, where archives of physical, biogeochemical and biological information preserved in lake sediments are used to reconstruct the past. In this seminar, I’ll give an overview of paleolimnological approaches and highlight some of the past and current paleolimnological research we’ve done in my lab and plans for future paleoecological research in Pennsylvania.
Water Insights is an interdisciplinary seminar series on water science, water management, and water policy sponsored by the Institute for Sustainable Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Science (SAFES). Speakers include researchers, water managers, and water policy makers from Penn State, other universities, government agencies and non-governmental organizations.