PhD
studentship: “Understanding Ancient Forest Fire
Activity”
This studentship is
funded by an FP7 Marie Curie Career Integration Grant, Agreement No
303610 and the College of Life and Environmental Sciences and will start in late
September 2012. For eligible students the award will cover UK/EU tuition fees, a
stipend payment and payment for 180 hours of work (teaching/research/admin) each
year. In total the stipend and payment for work would provide £13,590 per year,
for three years of full-time study (pro-rata for part-time students). The
studentship will be awarded on the basis of merit.
Project
Description:
Forest fires can be
devastating to both human, animal and plant life. The Earth has seen some
extreme fire events over recent years (e.g. Black Saturday Bush Fires, Australia
2009; Attika Fire, Greece 2009) many of which have been due in part to extreme
weather, such as intense drought and unprecedented temperatures. Models of
future climate change predictions (using double current carbon dioxide levels)
suggest that the annual number of forest fires in North America will increase by
44% and that fire seasons in both boreal, temperate and Mediterranean regions
are likely to increase in duration. These imply that as our world warms we will
be faced with an increased fire threat.
The geological record
holds information about variations in fire activity during past globally warm
periods in the form of fossil charcoals produced by ancient forest fires.
However, pre-Quaternary charcoal
counts are taken in much the same way as they were over a century ago, and
mostly involve a researcher counting the number of particles of charcoal in a
known volume or area of rock with the aid of a light microscope. This is
problematic for at least two reasons:
Firstly, our understanding of
what variations in the abundance of pre-Quaternary fossil charcoal mean is
limited. For example one could
create 1 large piece of charcoal and count this as 1 particle, but the same
particle could be fragmented into 100s of tinier particles in which case the
amount of charcoal would appear much greater, when in reality the same amount of
charcoal was formed in each case.
Secondly, distinguishing
charcoal and coal particles in fossil preparations using image analysis systems
is a difficult task. This represents an acute challenge for researchers working
in pre-Quaternary time. The difficulty of this classification problem (charcoal
vs. coal) has hindered efforts to develop semi-automated and fully automated
charcoal counting systems, which in turn limits the scope of many
investigations.
Using classical and
novel microscopy techniques, and methods from the field of image analysis, this
studentship/project aims to: (1) develop methods to identify charred particles
vs coalified particles; (2) develop methods to measure the area of the charred
particles, enabling Pre-Quaternary researchers to report charcoal abundance in
mm2; (3) apply these methods to selected periods of global change in
Earth history in order to assess variations in the “abundance” of fossil
charcoal during intervals of major climatic change.
This project links to a
larger project run by Dr Claire M. Belcher that seeks to estimate variations in
fire activity in response to ancient global warming events. This
research will be undertaken at the University of Exeter under the supervision of
Dr Claire M. Belcher and in collaboration with the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, under the guidance of Dr Surangi W. Punyasena. The student will have the opportunity
to travel to the USA as part of this project.
Entry requirements: Applicants for this
studentship must have obtained, or be about to obtain, a First or Upper Second
Class UK Honours degree, or the equivalent qualifications gained outside the UK,
in a relevant subject. A Master’s degree in a relevant subject will be
advantageous. The studentship is only available to UK and other EU nationals.
You will need to submit some personal
details, including the names and contact details of two referees, and upload the
following documents (preferred format for uploaded files is .pdf and preferred
filename should start with your last name):
- CV
- Covering letter (please
clearly identify which project you would like to be considered for and outline
your academic interests, prior research experience and reasons for wishing to
undertake the project).
·
Transcript(s) giving full details of subjects studied and grades/marks obtained
(this should be an interim transcript if you are still
studying)
· 2 references
(if your
referees prefer, they can email the reference direct to cles-studentships@exeter.ac.uk)
If you have any general
enquiries about the application process please email cles-studentships@exeter.ac.uk
or phone +44 (0)1392 725150/723706/723310.
The closing
date for applications is midnight on Sunday 27th May 2012. We expect to hold
interviews in July 2012.