Public Lecture Event

Reconstructing northeastern Pacific climate variability from the annual growth increments of Pacific geoduck (David Edge PhD Defense)

Abstract: The long-term character and range of northeast Pacific climate variability is largely unknown due to the short period of instrumental record and poor agreement among existing reconstructions. To address this issue, a multi-centennial record of northeast Pacific climate is developed from a new archive, the Pacific geoduck, a long-lived marine bivalve known to form annual growth increments within its shell.

Tree-Ring Day

Join us for a series of public talks by our graduate students!

Schedule:

10:30 — Opening Remarks (David Frank)
10:45 — Live 3-minute Lightning Talks

Uncovering Ancient Egyptian Illumination

Free lecture, open to the public.

Summary: Very little is known about what the ancient Egyptians used for artificial lighting. The logistics of how these light sources were constructed, when they were used, and why they appear in certain ritual performances are even less understood. This presentation (re)examines archaeological, textual and iconographic material in order to provide new insight into these unanswered questions. 

New directions in New Zealand dendroarchaeology

New Zealand has a comparatively short history of human settlement (~800 years) but even so dating Māori archaeological sites and artefacts can be problematic. Radiocarbon dating is commonly used to establish calendar dates but the effect of variations in atmospheric radiocarbon on calibrated age ranges (~100 to 150 years for individual carbon dates) reduces precision. This talk introduces three linked projects that are investigating the potential to improve dating of Māori sites and wooden artefacts using dendrochronology and high resolution wiggle-match carbon dating.

Subscribe to Public Lecture Event