The Palaeoenvironmental Research Unit Staff

Dr Carleton Jones – development of prehistoric societies and their interactions with landscapes

Dr Karen Molloy – pollen, plant macrofossils, long-term environmental change

Dr Audrey Morley – ocean-atmosphere climate dynamics of past warm climates, paleothermometry, trace metal and isotope geochemistry, marine carbonates

Prof Michael O’Connell (emeritus) – pollen, plant macrofossils, long-term environmental change

Dr Aaron Potito – palaeolimnology, chironomids, tree-rings

Unit Coordinator:  Dr Aaron Potito, aaron.potito nuigalway.ie, +353 (0)91 493936

Dr Carlton Jones

Lecturer in Archaeology

Room ARC209, Department of Archaeology, School of Geography and Archaeology, Arts/Science Building, NUI, Galway.
Tel 00 353 (0) 91 492303 Ext 2303
Fax 00 353 (0) 91 525700   
E-mail carleton.jonesnuigalway.ie

My research is concerned with investigating the organization and dynamics of prehistoric societies in Ireland. I am primarily focused on the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Early Bronze Age periods and to this end I have directed a long-term field project surveying and excavating on the Burren in western Ireland. This project, the Roughan Hill Project, has recorded and dated an extensive landscape of habitation sites, field divisions, and ritual monuments which allows interpretation to begin at the very local scale of a residential group and then expand geographically and chronologically.

My research takes an anthropological approach to the data and I am particularly concerned with the inter-relatedness of aspects such as the scale of residential groups and patterns of settlement, the economic activities of communities, contact and exchange networks and mechanisms, the scale and focus of ritual activities, and the nature of status distinctions.

Dr Karen Molloy

Senior Technical Officer and Researcher, School of Geography and Archaeology

Room: 12G-D001, Palaeoenvironmental Research Unit, 12 Distillery Road, NUI Galway, Galway.
Tel: 00 353 (0)91 493255 Ext 2338
E-mail: karen.molloynuigalway.ie

My main focus of research is using palaeoenvironmental methods, primarily pollen analysis, to reconstruct changes in the Irish landscape since the late-glacial period to recent times.
Since returning to NUI Galway in the early 1990s, I have been responsible for detailed pollen analytical investigations at several high profile sites such as Céide Fields, N Mayo, and Mooghaun, SE Co. Clare, as well as being the main pollen analyst for the EU-funded project TIMECHS which focussed on Inis Oírr, Aran Islands. Other research projects include Late-glacial and Holocene climate change in Atlantic Europe based on multiproxy evidence from calcareous lake sediments (funded by the HEA, PRTLI3 programme) and Reconstruction of post-glacial change at Ballinphuill, east Galway (M6 motorway) and Caheraphuca, Crusheen (N18 motorway) (funded by the NRA/Galway County Council).

Dr Audrey Morley

Lecturer in Geography

Room: 109, Geography 
Tel: 00 353 (0) 91 49 4104  Ext  4104
Fax: 00 353 (0) 91 495505
E-mail: Audrey.morleynuigalway.ie

My central research objective is to understand how regional climate instabilities develop into abrupt hemispheric and global climate change. Specifically, I focus on the response of the North Atlantic to climate forcing mechanisms during the Holocene (10.000 years) by examining atmosphere-ocean circulation systems and their potential role in controlling, propagating, and amplifying climate instabilities into abrupt climate change.

I am interested in determining how changes in atmospheric circulation patterns control the strength (temperature, salinity, and density) of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) at central water depth on multidecadal to centennial timescales. Understanding this process is crucial considering (1) that one third of the total heat exchange of the oceans occurs at central water depth (~200-1000 m) and (2) that central waters have warmed at an unprecedented rate over the past few decades.

Prof Michael O’Connell

Professor Emeritus

Room:  12 Distillery Road
Tel: 00 353 (0) 91 49 2338  Ext  2338
E-mail: Michael.oconnellnuigalway.ie

Founder and former director of the Palaeoenvironmental Research Unit (PRU).
Main research interest: Late-glacial and Holocene environmental change with particular reference to Ireland, using pollen analysis as the main research tool.

The research has been supported by various national and international agencies, including the EU (cf. TIMECHS).

Attention has also been given to present-day vegetation (especially wetland plant communities) and cultural landscapes in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe.

Dr Aaron Potito

Head of School: Geography and Archaeology

Coordinator of the Palaeoenvironmental Research Unit (PRU)

Room: 118, Geography 
Tel: 00 353 (0) 91 49 3936  Ext  3936
Fax: 00 353 (0) 91 495505
E-mail: Aaron.potitonuigalway.ie

My research focuses on the use of lake sedimentary records and tree-rings to reconstruct late Pleistocene and Holocene climates and to assess human impacts on lake and forest environments. My research has increasingly concentrated on chironomid (non-biting midge fly) subfossils in lake sediments as a palaeoenvironmental indicator, but I remain active in dendroecological and dendroclimatologic studies. Current chironomid-based research projects include palaeotemperature reconstruction for Holocene climates in Ireland, assessment of historic and pre-historic human impacts on lake systems in Ireland, impacts of recent climate change on lake ecosystems in China, and a palaeolimnological assessment of mid-Holocene aridity in the Midwestern United States. Dendrological research interests include the use of tree ring techniques to assess the health and growth patterns of natural forest stands in western Ireland. My work has been based in the United States, Ireland, and China.

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