Dr Encarni Montoya, NERC Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Back to the future II: mad for mud!

Dr Encarni Montoya, NERC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The Open University

We are aware that planet Earth is different from the poles to the equator, and that we suffer climatic variations from year to year.  Thanks to science we also know that a given location has not been always the same.  Both the vegetation and climate have changed through time.  We have been able to understand these changes thanks to the study of the past, which also can provide insights about our future world.  How then do scientists measure and analyse environments that do not exist anymore or have not occurred yet?  In this sequel to the 2013 talk by Frazer Bird, Encarni will explain how scientists act as detectives, piecing together the puzzle of environments that have been and could be.