Empleo - PhD studentship available in "Understanding Ancient Forest Fire Activity" -

PhD studentship: “Understanding Ancient Forest Fire Activity”

This studentship is funded by an FP7 Marie Curie Career Integration Grant, Agreement N^o 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.

The successful applicant will benefit from working within a lively research environment within Geography at the College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter. Students will be based at the Streatham Campus, Exeter.

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.

Application procedures: Please click on this link to complete an online ‘Funding Application’ web form.

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.