The Landscape Evolution and Luminescence Geochronology Laboratory studies changes in earth systems in the recent past. We focus on understanding how dunefields, river systems and lakes are impacted by environmental and anthropogenic changes through time.
Much of our research involves using geochronology, primarily optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating methods. Luminescence dating methods have been effectively used to estimate the last time that sand grains were exposed to either sunlight or heat, allowing us to accurately date sediments in archaeological, geological and pedogenic environments.
Project Highlights
UCARE Project - Summer of 2024
https://careers.unl.edu/channels/ucare/
Student Participants: Jasmine Pham & Joe Stalder
Mentor: Jim Benes
Overview: This project involves describing and analyzing a sediment core taken from Dewey Marsh in the Nebraska Sandhills. We are looking at how the environment has changed based on the stratigraphic record, with a particular interest in how the history of fires in the region has changed over time. To do this, we will be conducting a grain size analysis, counting the amount of charcoal present in the core, running a LOI test, extracting macrofossils, and determining the age of the sediments using Carbon-14 and OSL dating techniques.
Initial Core Description (ICR): Using the Munsell Soil Charts, Joe and Jasmine assess the color and depth of the layers (bed zones), describing the approximate composition of the layers and the boundaries between the layers.
