With partial support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Carol Harden and her colleagues will purchase three sets of equipment: a Bartington MS2 magnetic susceptibility system with IBM compatible software; a Trimble Navigation Pathfinder Pro XL geographic position system; a Thermolyne F6020C muffle furnace with automatic temperature control. All three instruments will aid the researchers in their geographically- related projects which examine the interaction between human behavior and environmental change. One focus of the Geography Department at the University of Tennessee is the reconstruction of environment through the use of lake cores. The pollen and other materials which these contain permit researchers to reconstruct vegetation and aspects of geomorphology at consecutive points in time and thus gain insight into change. It is also possible, in some cases to determine the cause of this change and integrate human behavior into the system. Magnetic susceptibility measurements assist in the chronological correlation of different cores and thus serve, indirectly, as a dating technique. Through controlled combustion of core sediment it is possible to determine the amount of organic material present. Finally a geographical positioning system will allow the researchers to position cores and other geographic features accurately in space. Dr. Harden and her colleagues are currently pursuing a number of research projects. Several involve an ongoing effort to reconstruct Late Quaternary climate patterns in the neotropics and to identify human impacts on vegetation. The work to date has yielded new insights on the role of fire in high-altitude contexts and on the timing and extent of human disturbance in lowland rainforest environments.
