Professor Siwan Davies | |
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| Born | Newport, Pembrokeshire, Wales |
| Language | Welsh, English |
| Nationality | Welsh |
| Education | Royal Holloway, University of London |
| Genre | Academic |
| Subject | Geography |
Siwan Davies FLSW is a Welsh professor of Physical Geography in the department of science at Swansea University.
Davies' research focus is to analyze past climate change and to reconstruct past climate changes. Together with a team of lecturing staff, technicians, PhD students and post doctoral researchers Davies is looking at rapid climatic changes. One of the challenges to understand why these changes occur is understanding where these events happen, are there triggers in the oceans or are there triggers in the atmosphere? By analyzing ash layers that have been spread across and therefore incorporated into ice and terrestrial matter from erupted volcanoes. By analyzing the microscopic ash particles in these matters Davies and her team can measure differences and similarities in changes that have occurred. These findings help to date and explain when these changes happened and why. By understanding what happened in the past will give them insight into what may happen in the future. Davies and her team are working closely with the ice and climate group at the University of Copenhagen as well as UK institutions such as Bangor and the University of Saint Andrews. [1]
Davies is currently working in collaboration with scientists from 14 different countries to excavate ice from the northwest of Greenland as part of the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (Neem) project. [2] The ice will be retrieved in layers as far down as 8000 ft. The findings within this excavation will include evidence of organic materials as well as air bubbles that will be an indication of greenhouse gases that could have been found in the atmosphere over 100,000 years ago. [3] Davies research on minuscule ash particles within the layers of ice, will help create a timeline of volcanic eruptions, which will help compare and analyze climatic evidence recorded in the Greenland ice with that preserved in the deep sea. [3]
S4C filmed a series 'Her yr Hinsawdd' documenting Davies experience in meeting communities in Greenland and the Maldives affected by climate changes and in particular the ice caps melting. [4]
Siwan Davies is also an advocate for promoting women in STEM, speaking at events like soapbox science in Swansea, 2014. [5] [6] She is a founding committee member of Swansea Science Grll and SwanStemWomen.
| Year from | Year to | Position | Organisation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 2016 | President of Geography section [8] | British Science Association |
| 2015 | Present | Elected Fellow [9] | Learned Society for Wales |
| 2012 | Present | Professor of Physical Geography | Swansea University |
| 2011 | 2012 | Reader | Swansea University |
| 2008 | 2011 | Senior Lecturer | Swansea University |
| 2004 | 2008 | Lecturer | Swansea University |
| 2003 | 2004 | Post-doctoral research assistant | University of Copenhagen |
| 2002 | 2003 | Post-doctoral research assistant | Stockholm University |
The Holocene is the current geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene together form the Quaternary period. The Holocene is an interglacial period within the ongoing glacial cycles of the Quaternary, and is equivalent to Marine Isotope Stage 1.
The Younger Dryas (YD) was a period in Earth's geologic history that occurred circa 12,900 to 11,700 years Before Present (BP). It is primarily known for the sudden or "abrupt" cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, when the North Atlantic Ocean cooled and annual air temperatures decreased by ~3 °C (5.4 °F) over North America, 2–6 °C (3.6–10.8 °F) in Europe and up to 10 °C (18 °F) in Greenland, in a few decades. Cooling in Greenland was particularly rapid, taking place over just 3 years or less. At the same time, the Southern Hemisphere experienced warming. This period ended as rapidly as it began, with dramatic warming over ~50 years, which transitioned the Earth from the glacial Pleistocene epoch into the current Holocene.
The Toba eruption was a supervolcanic eruption that occurred about 74,000 years ago during the Late Pleistocene at the site of present-day Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. It was the last in a series of at least four caldera-forming eruptions at this location, with the earlier known caldera having formed around 1.2 million years ago. This last eruption had an estimated VEI of 8, making it the largest-known explosive volcanic eruption in the Quaternary, and one of the largest known explosive eruptions in the Earth's history.
Eldgjá is a volcano and a canyon in Iceland. Eldgjá is part of the Katla volcano; it is a segment of a 40 kilometres (25 mi) long chain of volcanic craters and fissure vents that extends northeast away from Katla volcano almost to the Vatnajökull ice cap. This fissure experienced a major eruption around 939 CE, which was the largest effusive eruption in recent history. It covered about 780 square kilometres (300 sq mi) of land with 18.6 cubic kilometres (4.5 cu mi) of lava from two major lava flows.
The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Last Glacial Coldest Period, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period where ice sheets were at their greatest extent 26,000 and 20,000 years ago. Ice sheets covered much of Northern North America, Northern Europe, and Asia and profoundly affected Earth's climate by causing a major expansion of deserts, along with a large drop in sea levels.
Viedma is a subglacial volcano whose existence is questionable. It is supposedly located below the ice of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, an area disputed between Argentina and Chile. The 1988 eruption deposited ash and pumice on the ice field and produced a mudflow that reached Viedma Lake. The exact position of the edifice is unclear, both owing to the ice cover and because the candidate position, the "Viedma Nunatak", does not clearly appear to be of volcanic nature.
Tephrochronology is a geochronological technique that uses discrete layers of tephra—volcanic ash from a single eruption—to create a chronological framework in which paleoenvironmental or archaeological records can be placed. Such an established event provides a "tephra horizon". The premise of the technique is that each volcanic event produces ash with a unique chemical "fingerprint" that allows the deposit to be identified across the area affected by fallout. Thus, once the volcanic event has been independently dated, the tephra horizon will act as time marker. It is a variant of the basic geological technique of stratigraphy.
Mount Churchill is a dormant volcano in the Saint Elias Mountains and the Wrangell Volcanic Field (WVF) of eastern Alaska. Churchill and its neighbor Mount Bona are both ice-covered volcanoes with Churchill having a 2.7-by-4.2-kilometre-wide caldera just east of its summit. There are sparse outcrops of lava flows and tephra, mostly dacite.
Lautaro is an active subglacial stratovolcano located in Chilean Patagonia, in the northern part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Its summit rises roughly 2,400 m (7,900 ft) above the average surface of the ice cap plateau.
Mentolat is an ice-filled, 6 km (4 mi) wide caldera in the central portion of Magdalena Island, Aisén Province, Chilean Patagonia. This caldera sits on top of a stratovolcano which has generated lava flows and pyroclastic flows. The caldera is filled with a glacier.
Torfajökull is a rhyolitic stratovolcano, with a large caldera capped by a glacier of the same name and associated with a complex of subglacial volcanoes. Torfajökull last erupted in 1477 and consists of the largest area of silicic extrusive rocks in Iceland. This is now known to be due to a VEI 5 eruption 55,000 years ago.
Aguilera is a stratovolcano in southern Chile. The volcano rises above the edge of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. It is a remote volcano that was identified as such in 1985. The first ascent only occurred in 2014, making it the last unclimbed major Andean volcano.
In climatology, the 8.2-kiloyear event was a sudden decrease in global temperatures that occurred approximately 8,200 years before the present, or c. 6,200 BC, and which lasted for the next two to four centuries. It defines the start of the Northgrippian age in the Holocene epoch. The cooling was significantly less pronounced than during the Younger Dryas cold period that preceded the beginning of the Holocene. During the event, atmospheric methane concentration decreased by 80 ppb, an emission reduction of 15%, by cooling and drying at a hemispheric scale.
Reclus, also written as Reclús, is a volcano located in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, Chile. Part of the Austral Volcanic Zone of the Andes, its summit rises 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) above sea level and is capped by a crater about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) wide. Close to the volcano lies the Amalia Glacier, which is actively eroding Reclus.
Thordarhyrna is one of seven subglacial volcanoes beneath the Vatnajokull glacier in Iceland. It is a paired active central volcano with Grímsvötn, and can be classified as part of the Grímsvötn-Laki volcanic system, with common fissure swarms to the south.
The Campanian Ignimbrite eruption was a major volcanic eruption in the Mediterranean during the late Quaternary, classified 7 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI). The event has been attributed to the Archiflegreo volcano, the 12-by-15-kilometre-wide caldera of the Phlegraean Fields, located 20 km (12 mi) west of Mount Vesuvius under the western outskirts of the city of Naples and the Gulf of Pozzuoli, Italy. It is the largest explosive volcanic event in Europe in the past 200,000 years, and the largest eruption of Campi Fleigrei caldera.
Monte Burney is a volcano in southern Chile, part of its Austral Volcanic Zone which consists of six volcanoes with activity during the Quaternary. This volcanism is linked to the subduction of the Antarctic Plate beneath the South America Plate and the Scotia Plate.
Mount Berlin is a glacier-covered volcano in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica, 100 kilometres (62 mi) from the Amundsen Sea. It is a roughly 20-kilometre-wide (12 mi) mountain with parasitic vents that consists of two coalesced volcanoes: Berlin proper with the 2-kilometre-wide (1.2 mi) Berlin Crater and Merrem Peak with a 2.5-by-1-kilometre-wide crater, 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) away from Berlin. The summit of the volcano is 3,478 metres (11,411 ft) above sea level. It has a volume of 200 cubic kilometres (48 cu mi) and rises from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It is part of the Marie Byrd Land Volcanic Province. Trachyte is the dominant volcanic rock and occurs in the form of lava flows and pyroclastic rocks.
Vatnaöldur is the name of a series of craters in the Suðurland region of Iceland. They are located in the Highlands of Iceland, north–west of the Veiðivötn and north–east of Landmannalaugar, within the municipality of Rangárþing ytra. It is part of the Eastern volcanic zone (EVZ).
The preboreal oscillation (PBO) was a short cooling period within the preboreal stage of the Holocene epoch.
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