Charcoal stored in preserved guano gives researchers a new way to reconstruct regional fire histories.
charcoal
Posted inNews
Ancient Victims of Vesuvius May Have Baked in a Cloud of Ash
Debate still swirls around what killed ancient Romans during the 79 CE eruption. A study of wood charred by the event suggests a brief, but searing, flow of volcanic gas and debris.
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A Spike in Wildfires Contributed to the End-Permian Extinction
An upward trend in fossilized charcoal indicates that wildfires may have contributed to extinctions during the Great Dying.
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Cretaceous Charcoal Gives a Glimpse of Plant Evolution
New data from vegetal charcoal in northwest India supports the theory of paleowildfires as a global phenomenon and an evolutionary force for biodiversity.
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Māori Arrival in New Zealand Revealed in Antarctic Ice Cores
A new study shows smoke from fires set by the first inhabitants of Aotearoa from around 1300 left a mark in the ice 6,000 kilometers away, on an island off the Antarctic Peninsula.
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Early Inhabitants of the Bahamas Radically Altered the Environment
Clues in sediments show that once humans arrived on Great Abaco Island, they hunted large reptiles to extinction and burned the old hardwoods and palms, leading to new pine- and mangrove-dominated lands.
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Sooty Layers in Stalagmites Record Human Activity in Caves
Scientists analyzing cave formations in Turkey find layers of soot and charcoal in stalagmites, revealing that humans—and their fires—occupied caves thousands of years ago.
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Humans Colonized Polynesia Much Earlier Than Previously Thought
Evidence from mud, charcoal, and feces suggests humans arrived in East Polynesia during the driest period in 2 millennia.
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New England Forests Were Historically Shaped by Climate, Not People
A first-of-its-kind study combining paleoecology and archeology indicates that the New England landscape was not actively managed with fire prior to European arrival.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Southern California Climate Change over 100,000 Years
Researchers used a sediment core from a lake in California’s San Bernardino Mountains to track the effect of climate on vegetation, fire, and erosion between about 120,000 and 15,000 years ago.