RESEARCH INTERESTS: ROLAND ZECH
- Applying innovative, new analytical tools, such as surface exposure dating and compound-specific isotope analyses, in Quaternary archives, ranging from glacial deposits to paleosols and lake sediments …
- ...in order to reconstruct past climate and environmental changes and to better understand the controls and mechanisms involved on glacial-interglacial and millennial timescales.
Glaciology --- Not all mountain glaciers reached their last maximum extent in phase with the global Last Glacial Maximum (LGM: ~20 ka). In many parts of the world, glacial mass balances significantly depend on precipitation. Therefore, establishing glacial chronologies, e.g. using surface exposure dating, allows reconstructing past changes in temperature as well as precipitation and atmospheric circulation patterns. (Photo: Christoph Kull, helping with sampling for surface exposure dating in the Encierro Valley, 2004.)
Paleosols --- In contrast to glacial deposits, paleosol-sediment sequences can be more continuous archives. Applying both standard analytical techniques, such as grain size and elemental analyses, and innovative, new methods, such as compound-specific stable isotope and GDGT analyses, enables reconstructing past climate conditions and changes in the depositional environment. (Photo: Paleosol sequence on Mount Kilimanjaro, 2005.)
Lake sediments --- An even much higher temporal resolution can be achieved when analyzing lake sediments. In formerly glaciated mountain regions, lake sediments are an excellent archive to investigate climate and environmental changes since deglaciation. (Photo: Coring Lake Panch Pokari, Nepal, 2003.)
RESEARCH PROJECTS
Lipid biomarkers and compound-specific stable isotope analyses in paleosols --- The SNF PostDoc fellowship, that I was awarded in 2008, allows me to expand my analytical skills. With Y. Huang and J. Russell at the Brown University, I am working on GDGTs and compound-specific stable isotopes 
in a variety of archives, including paleosols from South America, Mount Kilimanjaro and Siberia. These innovative, new methods hold the potential to reconstruct past temperature and precipitation changes more quantitatively than the classical geochemical and pedological proxies. (Photo, above: Mount Kilimanjaro, 2005. Image, right: a screenshot of a D isotope measurement on alkanes, 2009.)
10Be surface exposure dating in the Central Andes --- Since 2004, I have been coordinating the research at the Geographical Institute, University of Bern, aiming at establishing glacial chronologies in the Central Andes using 10 Be surface exposure dating. Within a first project funded by the SNF, I finished my PhD and started supervising bachelor and master students. A second SNF project provides funding for a new PhD student since 2006, and, apart from establishing further chronologies, we are aiming at reducing the systematic methodological uncertainties, i.e. looking for suitable calibration sites in the Central Andes. (Photo: With Anina Schmidhauser in the Cordon de Dona Rosa, 2005.)
Climate reconstruction in the South American subtropical lowlands --- Climate and environmental reconstruction in the subtropical lowlands allows comparison with changes documented at high altitudes in the Andes. Since 2004, I am involved in projects investigating paleosol-sediment sequences along the Andean piedmont (collaboration with J.H. May) and the Argentinean Pampa (collaboration with M. Zech).
Landscape and climate reconstruction in Central Asia --- In 2003, I finished my diploma thesis on exposure dating in the Pamir Mountains, but since then I continued research there in collaboration with the University of Bayreuth, as well as in other parts of Central Asia, namely the Tien Shan and Nepal. Recognizing the potential of lake sediments for higher-resolution climate and environmental reconstruction, one research aspect, apart from geomorphology and glacial chronologies, is also to recover and analyze lake sediments. (Photo: Flavio Anselmetti and Ines Roehringer preparing for the seismic survey at Lake Yashilkul, Pamir Mountains, 2007.)
Quaternary climate and environmental reconstruction in Northeast Siberia --- During a field trip to the Verkhoyansk Mountains in collaboration with the AWI Potsdam and the University of Aachen, Germany, in 2002, we sampled a 240 ka permafrost profile. The loess-like deposits provide important insights into the role of the high northern latitudes on orbital timescales concerning albedo feedbacks, organic carbon storage and the response of vegetation to climate change. (Photo: W. Zech, sampling the permafrost paleosol section ‘Tumara’, 2002.)
