Previously Funded Projects

QRC members lead and participate in a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary research projects from the study of past earth climates and glaciations to shifts in the geographic distributions and evolution of vegetation and faunal communities, to the evolution and dispersals of the genus Homo and the increasing scales of human modification of earth environments through the Holocene. QRC provides a venue for meeting and collaborating with scholars across Quaternary disciplines. We are also fortunate to be able to provide seed funding and small grants for member research projects. We are especially happy to support grad student and junior scholar research activities, much of which leads to larger, external funding from agencies like the National Science Foundation.

4 projects in Holocene All Projects
  • 2018-19 | |
    • Hannah Glover, Student
    • Andrea Ogston, Member

    Decadal-scale impacts of mangrove removal: Re-evaluation of sediment characteristics and transport >10-years after mangrove removal in Tauranga Harbor, New Zealand

    Abstract: Mangrove forests occupy the complex intersection of geomorphology, oceanography, forestry, and anthropology. As the only large woody plant that grows in the intertidal zone, mangroves directly impact coastal stability and morphology by rapidly colonizing prograding shorelines, retaining sediment, and damping wave energy. Unfortunately, mangrove forests are threatened by accelerating deforestation, and there is very little data on decade- to century-scale change following mangrove removal. A mangrove clearing project in Tauranga Harbor, New Zealand has provided a rare opportunity to observe decadal-scale, geomorphic changes associated with deforestation. Patchy mangrove removal in 2005 created a natural laboratory to compare sedimentary processes on naturally unvegetated, forested, and cleared intertidal surfaces of the harbor. Changes to the estuarine morphology and sediment transport were evaluated during and immediately after the clearing in the Waikaraka Estuary of Tauranga Harbor. This estuary will now be reexamined in June 2019 through a collaboration between UW, Southern Cross University, and the University of Waikato. We will examine the physiognomy of the mangrove stands, evaluate sediment transport using acoustic current meters and sediment traps, and collect cores of the upper 1-m of sediment. The cores will be analyzed for grain size and organic content. Accumulation rates will be calculated using 210Pb. These measurements will be used to assess the physical changes which have occurred and predict the future evolution of this estuary. We are grateful for the support of the QRC, which will enable us to use deploy the acoustic instruments and conduct the 210Pb analysis. These measurements add quantitative evaluation of the previously published patterns of sediment transport and geomorphic change. This field study will improve our understanding of past and future coastal change associated with deforestation.

    Report: Read the report here.

  • 2015-16 | |
    • Ashley Maloney, Student
    • Peter Lape, Member
    • Julian Sachs, Member

    Climate and Culture in the Tropical Pacific during the mid-late Holocene

    Abstract: In the tropics paleoclimate records are discontinuous and sparse. Furthermore they are developed from diverse archives with a wide range of specialized methods such as deep sea sediment foraminifera isotope records (Koutavas and Joanides, 2012; Koutavas et al., 2006; Rustic et al., 2015), coral isotope records (DeLong et al., 2012; Linsley et al., 2006), coral elemental composition (Thompson et al., 2015), speleothem isotope records (Maupin et al., 2014; Partin et al., 2013), and lake sediment algal lipid isotope records (Atwood and Sachs, 2014; Nelson, 2013; Sachs et al., 2009; Smittenberg et al., 2011) to name a few. This presents a challenge when applying paleoclimate data to archaeological situations and trying to interpret evidence of human migration and settlement (e.g. Allen, 2014; Anderson et al., 2006; Goodwin et al., 2014) and fortifications (Field and Lape, 2010) etc. One way to address this challenge is to foster interdisciplinary cooperative efforts between archaeologists and paleoenvironmental specialists (Lape, 2007).  To support this effort and discuss key climate factors that influenced tropical Pacific human culture during the mid-late Holocene we propose to host Dr. Melinda N. Allen and Dr. Michael N. Evans.

    Dr. Allen is currently an anthropologist at the University of Auckland. She completed her undergraduate work at the University of Arizona and received a Master’s degree from the University of Hawai’i, Manoa. Melinda completed her Ph.D. at the University of Washington in 1992 which examined subsistence and landscape change in the Cook Islands and was a Research Anthropologist at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu (Hawai’i) for five years before joining the University of Auckland’s Department of Anthropology in 1996.

    Dr. Evans is currently a paleoclimatologist at the University of Maryland. He was an undergraduate in Environmental Science and Policy at Harvard and completed his Ph.D. in Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University in 1999 followed by Postdoctoral work at LDEO and Harvard. He was a Professor at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona before moving to the University of Maryland Department of Geology and Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center in 2008.

    Report: na

  • 2014-15 | |
    • Jody Bourgious, Member

    Holocene history of neotectonics, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanism, paleoclimate and people on Kamchatka – visit of Vera Ponomareva

    Abstract: This grant funded the travel of Vera Ponomareva, Senior Researcher, Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, to visit colleagues at UW and QRC, particularly Jody Bourgeois.  Vera and Jody have been working together, primarily on Kamchatka, since 1999 (representative references below), with their most recent collaboration focused on the mid-Holocene history of people and processes in the region near Ust’ Kamchatsk (central-east Kamchatka). In 2010, we excavated a peat near Krutoberegovo (the end of the road on Kamchatka!), which recorded the full Holocene record.  With excavation and coring, we sampled 7 m of peat for pollen studies (Florin Pendea, Lakehead University, Ontario) and tephra stratigraphy (Vera Ponomareva), with reference to coastal sections recording earthquakes and tsunamis (Jody Bourgeois and students), and to archaeological sites recording mid- to late Holocene occupation (University of Buffalo group). The purpose of Dr. Ponomareva’s visit in 2015 is to work more fully on the tephra record from this peat and related sites.  Jody will benefit from Vera’s expertise in reconstructing the history of various sites she and her students have worked on.  Vera will present at least one QRC talk on her tephra work, later in the spring.

    Report: Read Vera Ponomareva’s article on this project here.

  • 2014-15 | |
    • Ben Marwick, Member

    Investigating Holocene Ceramics in Peninsular Thailand

    ben_marwick_head_shouldersAbstract: We will collect data from archaeological ceramics excavated by a UW archaeology field school from the Khao Toh Chong rockshelter site in Peninsula Thailand to learn about the ‘missing middle’ Holocene period in mainland Southeast Asia. These data will be relevant to understanding the transition from hunting and gathering to a reliance on domesticated resources in Southeast Asia. This is a hotly contested subject, with Higham (2002) claiming a ‘walk in’ scenario of foreign migrants bringing agriculture in from the north, and White (1995) countering that the process of domestication occurred without outside influence.

    Report: Read the article based on this project here.

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