Equipment and Facilities Used and Maintained by EPC

Palaeoecology Laboratory

Palaeoecology Laboratory

The theme's research is aided by four laboratories

In addition it has high quality equipment for glaciology and glacial sedimentology.

Leica Scanstation

Leica Scanstation

The Palaeoecology Laboratory (PLUS) is a resource of international standing in the quality and range of its equipment and reference collections. It consists of a Preparation Laboratory with three fume cupboards, an Archive Room containing curated samples from over 30 years of research, and the main Palaeoecology Laboratory which houses 25 Nikon microscopes and ancillary equipment; a specialist library of books and reprints, including the recently donated Donald Walker collection, and a networked computer with palaeo software linked to a colour laser printer. There are extensive reference collections of pollen and plant macrofossils and a chironomid type collection is being established. Staff are experienced in a large range of palaeoecological techniques, including analyses of pollen, plant macrofossils, diatoms, tephra, and chironomids, from a range of different sediments. Field equipment includes six 'Russian' corers - three 50cm; two wide-bore 30cm for taking large samples; and one 100cm for field stratigraphy – an a range of other types of corer, including a 1m mini-Mackereth and Livingstone corer for sampling lake mud from an inflatable boat equipped with depth sounder and electric outboard engine. Research in PLUS is aided by a dedicated post-doctoral Research Technician who also maintains all the equipment.

Environmental Processes Lab

Environmental Processes Lab

The Environmental Processes Laboratory provides an opportunity to integrate the fundamental scientific processes of data collection, processing, analysis and visualization from a range of different environments. Included in this facility are essential state of the art and innovative research equipment. The equipment includes: field survey and logistics; environmental data retrieval and analysis, data processing and visualization. The school also maintains the New Forest Research Catchment, which was first instrumented in the mid 1970's to provide hydrological information from a lowland forest and moorland river catchment. Over 20 years of hydrological data now exists in chart records, and in 1996 the old instrumentation was upgraded to provide what is one of the UK's most advanced instrumented catchments for hydrological and geomorphological research.

Chilworth Flume

Chilworth Flume

The Chilworth Experimental Hydraulic Flume, an important purpose-built research facility, is managed in collaboration with the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and IRIS (Integrated Rivers-Instrument System) also represents a major development in measuring key hydraulic processes within British rivers

The school maintains high quality Glaciology Field Equipment for research on glacial processes. This includes a TOPCON differential GPS, Kärcher HDS1000DE hot water drill, borehole camera, borehole sediment sampler and ice auger. The petrographic microscope for till thin section analysis is housed in the Palaeoecology Laboratory.

We have also recently acquired a Leica Scanstation for high precision laser-scanning surveys.