Our research group investigates past climate and environmental change using speleothems (cave mineral formations, such as stalagmites and stalactites).
Speleothems are capable of recording a wide array of data on past climate and environmental processes, including hydrological changes and vegetation dynamics, and can be dated by radiometric methods with exceptional precision. We take advantage of these properties to address questions related to the causes and consequences of large-scale past climate changes, such as the Quaternary ice-age cycles, the long-term drivers of hydrological change in Australia, and human evolution and dispersal.
Our group is also heavily involved in developing new analytical techniques and data interpretation approaches, which are applicable to speleothem science as well as other areas of Earth and environmental science.
Contact
For enquiries, please email Timothy Pollard - timothy.pollard@unimelb.edu.au