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Dr Michael Burn

School of Biological and Environmental Sciences

Faculty of Science

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My research and teaching interests include reconstructing environmental and climatic change from lake sediment records in tropical South America and the Caribbean Region with particular emphasis on climate dynamics of the last millennium. I analyse sediment archives of environmental and climatic change in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean and aim to develop novel approaches to extend the instrumental record of climate variability back in time.

My principal aims are to:

1) Investigate Late-Holocene records of natural hazards (drought, hurricanes, tsunamis, fire) in the Caribbean spanning the last two millennia using natural archives of environmental change
2) Develop the application of paleo-environmental proxies (sediment geochemistry, ostracods, gastropods, foraminifera, stable isotopes, charcoal) to reconstruct environmental change in the Caribbean
3) Disentangle human versus natural controls on landscape change in the Caribbean spanning the last few millennia

Research Grants:

NERC Urgency Funding 2024 (NE/Z504270/1): Re-evaluating Late Holocene storm reconstructions in Jamaica following the passage of Hurricane Beryl (FEC £99,214) (PI). With Jonathan Holmes (Co-I, UCL) and Debbie-Ann Gordon-Smith (PP, The University of the West Indies, Jamaica)

External postgraduate supervision:

Rajne Reynolds (UWI): "Long-term records of environmental change from two mangrove lagoons in Jamaica"
Kadane Coates (UWI): "Geochemical evidence of rapid environmental change from a sediment record from Hunts Bay, Kingston Harbour, Jamaica"
Theresa Rodriguez (PhD, UWI): "Examining seasonal changes in the Yallahs Delta Front and reconstructing the past climate of the Yallahs region, St. Thomas, Jamaica. 2014

Degrees

2008, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom, PhD
2003, University of London, United Kingdom, MSc Quaternary Science
2002, Royal Holloway University of London, United Kingdom, BSc Geography

Academic appointments

Senior Lecturer in Geography, Liverpool John Moores University, 2022 - present
Lecturer in Physical Geography, Department of Geography and Geology, The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, 2008 - 2022

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