I am a PhD student at Lund University investigating the environmental impacts of major volcanic eruptions over the past millenia. My research involves using diatom assemblages in varved lake sediments as a proxy for catchment ecosystem response and recovery following volcanic deposition events. The region of study for my project is North-western Europe and Scandinavia, with study locations in Sweden, Finland, Germany and Switzerland. Elements of the project include sulphur and mercury dynamics (catchment-scale metabolism and related biogeochemistry) and diatom community response dynamics. During the later stages of my project I will perform high-resolution XAS speciation of chemically unaltered varved sediments at the MAX IV Synchrotron accelerator facility in Lund, in an effort to develop new applications of Synchrotron light within paleolimnology. My previous and ongoing research, an extension of my MSc project at Loughborough University, investigates diatom community response to hydrodynamic dredging in fine-sediment dominated tidal estuary.
