Dr Henry Lamb

Reader
MSc in Ecology from the University of Minnesota (1978)
PhD (University of Cambridge, 1982) Photograph of Dr Henry Lamb.

Contact

Email: hfl@aber.ac.uk
Office: C7
Phone: +44 (0)1970 622 597
Fax: +44 (0)1970 622 659

Teaching Areas

Modules Taught

Module coordinator for:

  • Global Ecology And Soil Systems (GG10410)
  • Reading The Ice Age Record (GG21110)
  • Dynamic Biogeography (GG30520)

Contributes to:

  • Environmental Science Tutorial Level 2 (ES20110)
  • People, Climate And Environment: A Palaeoenvironmental Perspective (GG33720)

Research

Group Affiliation

Research Interests

Late Pleistocene desiccation of Lake Tana, source of the Blue Nile. The Lake Tana project is continuing with further seismic survey to be carried out in February 2010 by Richard Bates (St Andrews) and Dei Huws (Bangor). Dating of the 90m core is proceeding, with palaeomagnetic determinations to be added to the radiocarbon and luminescence chronologies. http://www.ies.aber.ac.uk/en/research/projects/lake-tana

Death of the Nile?:  click here for a Wild Dogs Film clip containing  an interview with me about our L. Tana work.

Lake Suigetsu Varves 2006.  This international research project, based around the 2006 core of Lake Suigetsu, Japan,  will establish a radiocarbon calibration model for the Late Pleistocene (10,000 – 50,000 BP) based on radiocarbon analyses of terrestrial plant macrofossils recovered from annually laminated lacustrine sediment. Our contribution, led by Dr Michael Marshall, uses the Aberystwyth XRF core scanner to construct a varve chronology from the  Suigetsu core. http://www.suigetsu.org/embed.php?File=index.html

Hominid Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project.  We aim to a obtain a 400m / 1 million year core record of climatic change from the sediments of Chew Bahir, south Ethiopia, to test hypotheses about environmental influences on hominid evolution. http://www.icdp-online.org/contenido/icdp/front_content.php?idcat=1225

Our Way to Europe: Culture-Environment Interaction and Human Mobility in the Late Quaternary. I am an active participant in Project A3 (Ethiopian lakes in the source region of modern man) of this Cologne University Collaborative Research Centre. We aim to link archaeological and palaeo-ecological records of the emergence and dispersal of Homo sapiens sapiens from South Ethiopia  during the last 200,000 years.   http://www.sfb806.uni-koeln.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=13

Origins of Agriculture in the Horn of Africa:  with Helène Ducrotoy (IGES / IBERS PhD student), Matt Hegarty, Wayne Powell, Gareth Griffith, Hazel  Davey  (IBERS), and Endashaw Bekele (Addis Ababa University),  we have begun to examine the history of plant domestication  in NE Africa, using both palaeoecological and genetic approaches.

IGES Projects (Principal Investigator)

Other Projects

Current PhD Students

Postdoctoral Supervision

Biography

I graduated in Natural Sciences (Botany) from the University of Dublin (Trinity College) in 1976, and obtained an MSc in Ecology from the University of Minnesota (1978). My PhD research (University of Cambridge, 1982) was on the Holocene history of the forest-tundra ecotone in Labrador, Canada. I joined IGES in 1983, where I teach modules in Quaternary Palaeoecology and Biogeography.

My principal research interests are in Quaternary environmental change, specializing in lake-sediment records of climatic and vegetation change. Since 1992, my primary focus has been on East Africa, especially Ethiopia, working with colleagues from Addis Ababa, St Andrews, Bangor, and Cologne. I am Co-Director of the Itrax XRF core scanner facility, and a member of the NERC Radiocarbon Facility Steering Committee. Click here for details of my current projects.

Staff Publications

Peer Reviewed Book Chapters & Journal Articles

In Prep

  1. Marshall MH, Schlolaut G, Nakagawa T, Brauer A, Lamb H, Bronk Ramsey C, Yokoyama Y, Members Suigetsu2006Project. 5. A novel approach to varve counting: Combining thin section microscopy and microXRF and radiography for the Lake Suigetsu Project 2006. Quaternary Geochronology, In prep.

In Press

  1. Nakagawa T, Gotanda K, Haraguchi T, Danhara T, Yonenobu H, Brauer A, Yokoyama Y, Tada R, Takemura K, Staff RA, Payne R, Bronk Ramsey C, Bryant C, Brock F, Scholaut G, Marshall M, Tarasov P, Lamb HF, Suigetsu 2006 Project members. In Press. SG06, a fully continuous and varved sediment core from Lake Suigetsu, Japan: stratigraphy and potential for improvingthe radiocarbon calibration model and understanding of late Quaternary climate changes. Quaternary Science Reviews

2011

  1. Marshall MH, Lamb HF, Huws D, Davies SJ, Bates R, Bloemendal J, Boyle J, Leng MJ, Umer M., Bryant C. 2011. Late Pleistocene and Holocene drought events at Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile. Global and Planetary Change 78: 147-161. DOI
  2. Staff RA, Ramsey CB, Bryant CL, Brock F, Payne RL, Schlolaut G, Marshall MH, Brauer A, Lamb HF, Tarasov P, Yokoyama Y, Haraguchi T, Gotanda K, Yonenubu H, Nakagawa T, Suigetsu 2006 Project Members. 2011. New 14C determinations from Lake Suigetsu, Japan: 12,000 to 0 cal BP. Radiocarbon 53: 511-528.

2010

  1. Gil-Romera G, Carrion JS, Pausas JG, Sevilla-Callejo M, Lamb HF, Fernandez S, Burjachs F. 2010. Holocene fire activity and vegetation response in south-eastern Iberia. Quaternary Science Reviews, 29: 1082-1092. DOI
  2. Gil-Romera G, Lamb HF, Turton D, Sevilla-Callejo M, Umer M. 2010. Long-term resilience, bush encroachment patterns and local knowledge in a Northeast African savanna. Global Environmental Change-Human Policy Dimensions, 20: 612-626. DOI

2009

  1. Francus P, Lamb H, Nakagawa T, Marshall MH, Brown E, Members Suigetsu2006Project. 2009. The potential of high-resolution X-ray fluorescence core scanning: Applications in paleolimnology. PAGES Newsletter, 17: 93-95.
  2. Marshall MH, Lamb HF, Davies SJ, Leng MJ, Kubsa Z, Umer M, Bryant C. 2009. Climatic change in northern Ethiopia during the past 17,000 years: a diatom and stable isotope record from Lake Ashenge. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology , 279: 114-127. DOI

2008

  1. Tiercelin JJ, Gibert E, Umer M, Bonnefille R, Disnar JR, Lezine AM, Huraeu-Mazaudier D, Travi Y, Keravis D, Lamb HF. 2008. High-resolution sedimentary record of the last deglaciation from a high-altitude lake in Ethiopia. Quaternary Science reviews, 27: 449-467. DOI
  2. Roberts N, Jones D, Benkaddour A, Eastwood WJ, Filippi ML, Frogley MR, Lamb HF, Leng MJ, Reed JM, Stein M, Stevens L, Valero-Garces B, Zanchetta G. 2008. Stable isotope records of Late Quaternary climate and hydrology from Mediterranean lakes: the ISOMED synthesis. Quaternary Science Reviews, 27: 2426-2441.

2007

  1. Lamb AL, Brewer TS, Leng MJ, Sloane HJ, Lamb HF. 2007. A geochemical method for removing the effect of tephra on lake diatom oxygen isotope records. Journal of Paleolimnology, 37: 499-516.
  2. Bates CR, Lamb HF, Umer M. 2007. High-resolution seismic investigation of Lake Tana, northern Ethiopia. Near Surface Geophysics, 5: 243-250.
  3. Lamb HF, Leng MJ, Telford RJ, Ayenew T, Umer M. 2007. Oxygen and carbon isotope, composition of authigenic carbonate from an Ethiopian lake: a climate record of the last 2000 years. Holocene, 17: 517-526.
  4. Umer M, Lamb HF, Bonnefille R, Lézine A-M, Tiercelin J-J, Gibert E, Cazet J-P, Watrin J. 2007. Late Pleistocene and Holocene vegetation history of the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia. Quaternary Science Reviews, 26: 2229-2246. DOI
  5. Lamb HF, Bates CR, Coombes PV, Marshall MH, Umer M, Davies SJ, Dejen E. 2007. Late Pleistocene desiccation of Lake Tana, source of the Blue Nile. Quaternary Science Reviews, 26: 287-299. DOI
    Late Pleistocene desiccation of Lake Tana, source of the Blue Nile (PDF)

2005

  1. Lamb H, Thompson A. 2005. Unusual late-Holocene abundance of Ulmus in western Ireland – human impact in the absence of a pathogen? The Holocene, 15: 447-552.