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RISeR at the INQUA Congress

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University of Leeds research group members. 8 people sat around a table eating a meal.
RISeR group members enjoying a meal in Rome, alongside some of Natasha's other research students past and present.

In July, several members of the RISeR project attended and presented at the 2023 INQUA (International Union for Quaternary Research) Congress in Rome.  This conference is held once every 4 years, bringing together the worlds Quaternary scientists.  Despite the 40+oC heatwave in Italy at the time, it was lovely to see many friends and colleagues for the first time since the Dublin meeting 4 years ago, due the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr Amy McGuire presented on behalf of the RISeR project, a talk entitled “Integrating marine and terrestrial chronologies across the Last Interglacial for sequences from NW Europe” where she outlined the challenges and solutions to developing chronologies and understanding rates of environmental change in sediments from NW Europe that pre-date the application of radiocarbon.  This included presentation of the first late Quaternary interglacial tephra found in the southern North Sea, thanks to the pilot work of RISeR researchers Megan Edwards (who also attended the conference, presenting her Masters dissertation) and Lydia Woods.  Amy also co-convened the session “Quaternary palaeolandscape, palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental change in the North Sea” alongside our Dutch, Belgium and UK North Sea collaborators.

In a poster “Reconstructing the rate and magnitude of Last Interglacial sea-level change in the North Sea and its global implications”, Dr Graham Rush show the most up-to-date summary of our laboratory analysis.  We have been working hard to develop novel approaches, including the application of geochemistry and biomarkers, to reconstruct past sea-level change, to overcome the challenges of a lack of diatom and foraminifera microfossil preservation in our cores.  The biomarker work builds on collaboration with Martina Conti at the University of York, who also presented her work at INQUA “A new approach for studying sea-level changes using molecular fossils”.

RISeR also supported a session “Cenozoic sea-level indicators and ice sheet constraints to global sea-level change”, alongside the ERC-funded WARMCOASTS project and PALSEA, led by friend of RISeR Prof Alessio Rovere.  The session, which Graham Rush co-chaired, was very well attended, with more seats needing to be bought in for those standing at the back.  INQUA was the completion of Graham’s contract with RISeR, as he moves on to an exciting new Faculty position.  We wish him well, though he will continue to be a key member of the project team.