Geology Seminar Series Talk

Julian Eschenroeder, University of Otago

Abstract: Remote alpine lakes present archives of past environmental change and offer rare opportunities to study how natural climate variability has affected ecological conditions and ecosystem health. For my PhD, I studied two adjacent lakes in the alpine area of central Fiordland. By analysing the changes in the (bio)geochemical composition of the lakes’ sediment cores, it is possible to reconstruct the temperature, precipitation, and vegetation changes in the catchments, unveiling the history of these lakes since the end of the last deglaciation in the area around 17,000 years ago. Studying the interplay of environment-climate dynamics can help to understand baseline conditions of ecosystem health and to identify the current trajectories of alpine environments in a warming world.