Brian Chase
Associate Professor
Department of Archeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion
Academic Profile
Dr Chase received his D.Phil. in Geography from the University of Oxford. Prior to that he was awarded an MSc in Environmental Archaeology and Palaeoeconomy from the University of Sheffield, an MA in Geographic Education from Prescott College and a BA in Geography from Portland State University.
His research focuses on the development and evaluation of new palaeoenvironmental proxy data sources in the arid to sub-humid environments of southwestern Africa. While this region is highly sensitive to cycles of regional and global environmental change, and has the potential to be a valuable indicator of past climatic variability, only a very few palaeoenvironmental archives have been recovered from the area, and its environmental history remains poorly understood. As a result, models that have been developed to elucidate the dynamics of regional ecosystems, and the environmental context for human and cultural evolution are often contentious, lacking sufficient evidence to make robust interpretations.
This paucity of palaeoenvironmental information is largely a function of the region's climate that often precludes the preservation of organic proxy data sources. Dr. Chase's research concentrates on overcoming these obstacles by identifying and analyzing proxy archives that have either not experienced or are resistant to the effects of the region's pronounced seasonality.
He is presently exploring three primary research themes:
- The identification of palaeoecological proxy archives along the west coast of southern Africa, particularly fossilized hyrax middens and pollen records from coastal wetlands in the Western Cape.
- The analysis and evaluation of the aeolian deposits of southern Africa and their implications for the past dynamics of atmospheric and oceanic circulation systems in the African sector of the Southern Hemisphere.
- The creation of a database of proxy information from the southern Africa that is allowing for:
- the visualization and identification of the spatial and temporal patterning of palaeoenvironmental trends,
- the evaluation of hypotheses for the forcing mechanisms of environmental change,
- the development and evaluation of conceptual models that can be used to explore the dynamics and relative importance of different forcing mechanisms on southern African climates, and,
- detailed data-model comparisons.
Education
May 2006 • The University of Oxford
PhD in Physical Geography/Earth System Science
Sept. 2002 • The University of Sheffield
MSc in Environmental Archaeology and Palaeoeconomy (Distinction)
Peer-reviewed Publications
1. Xu, J.X., Zheng, Z., Huang, K.Y., Yue, Y.F., Li, J., Chase, B.M., Ledru, M.P., Carré, M., Cheddadi, R. (submitted). Recent impacts of climate and human activities on ecosystems in Fujian Province, China. Quaternary International.
2. Gouramanis, C., Dodson, J., Wilkins, D., Chase, B.M., De Deckker, P. (submitted). Holocene palaeoclimate and sea level fluctuation recorded in the coastal Barker Swamp, Rottnest Island, south-western Western Australia. Quaternary Science Reviews.
3. Boom, A., Roberts, Z.E., Chase, B.M., Meadows, M.E., Britton, M.N., Carr, A.S. (submitted). Chemically resistant organic matter within semi-arid soils of Southern Africa. Organic Geochemistry.
4. Stager, J. C., Mayewski, P. A., White, J., Chase, B. M., Neumann, F. H., Meadows, M. E., King, C. D., and Dixon, D. A. (submitted). South African rainfall peaks during the Little Ice Age linked to equatorward shifts in the austral westerlies. Climates of the Past.
5. Li, J., Zheng, Z., Huang, K., Yang, S., Chase, B.M., Valsecchi , V., Cheddadi, R. (in press). Vegetation changes during the past 40,000 years in Central China from a long fossil record. Quaternary International.
6. Sadler, J., Carré, M., Azzoug, M., Schauer, A.J., Ledesma, J., Fredy Cardenas, F., Chase, B.M., Bentaleb, I., Müller, S., Mandeng, M., Rohling, E.J. and Sachs, J.P. (in press). Reconstructing past upwelling intensity and the seasonal dynamics of primary productivity along the Peruvian coastline from mollusk shell stable isotopes. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems.
7. Carré, M., Azzoug, M., Bentaleb, I., Chase, B. M., Fontugne, M., Jackson, D., Ledru, M.-P., Maldonado, A., Sachs, J. P. (in press). Mid-Holocene background climate in the south-eastern Pacific and its influence on South America. Quaternary International.
8. Quick, L. J., Chase, B. M., Meadows, M. E., Scott, L., and Reimer, P. J. (2011). A 19.5 kyr vegetation history from the central Cederberg Mountains, South Africa: palynological evidence from rock hyrax middens. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 309, 253-270.
9. Stager, J. C., Ryves, D. B., Chase, B. M., and Pausata, F. S. R. (2011). Catastrophic drought in the Afro-Asian monsoon region during Heinrich event 1. Science 331, 1299-1302.
10. Chase, B. M., Quick, L., Meadows, M. E., Scott, L., Thomas, D. S. G., and Reimer, P. J. (2011). Late-glacial interhemispheric climate dynamics revealed in South African hyrax middens. Geology 39, 19-22.
11. Chase, B. M., Meadows, M. E., Carr, A.S., and Reimer, P. J. (2010). Evidence for Holocene aridification in southern Africa recorded in Namibian hyrax middens: implications for African Monsoon dynamics and the ‘African Humid Period’. Quaternary Research 74, 36-45.
12. Chase, B. M. (2010). South African palaeoenvironments during marine oxygen isotope stage 4: a context for the Howiesons Poort and Still Bay industries. Journal of Archaeological Science 37, 1359-1366.
13. Carr, A. S., Boom, A., Chase, B. M., Roberts, D.L., Roberts, Z.E. (2010). Molecular fingerprinting of lake sediment organic matter: an example from the southern Cape coastline of South Africa. Journal of Paleolimnology 44, 947-961
14. Meadows, M.E., Chase, B. M., Seliane, M. (2010). Holocene palaeoenvironments of the Cederberg and Swartruggens mountains, Western Cape, South Africa: Pollen and stable isotope evidence from hyrax dung middens. Journal of Arid Environments 74, 786-793.
15. Carr, A. S., Boom, A., Chase, B. M. (2010). The potential of plant biomarker evidence derived from rock hyrax middens as an indicator of palaeoenvironmental change. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 285, 321-330.
16. Chase, B. M., Meadows, M. E., Scott, L., Thomas, D. S. G., Marais, E., Sealy, J., and Reimer, P. J. (2009). A record of rapid Holocene climate change preserved in hyrax middens from SW Africa. Geology 37, 703-706.
17. Chase, B. M. (2009). Evaluating the use of dune sediments as a proxy for palaeo-aridity: a southern African case study. Earth-Science Reviews 93, 31-45.
18. Chase, B. M. and Brewer, S. (2009). Last Glacial Maximum dune activity in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa: observations and simulations. Quaternary Science Reviews 28, 301-307.
19. Tolley, K. A., Chase, B. M., and Forest, F. (2008). Speciation and radiations track climate transitions since the Miocene Climatic Optimum: a case study of southern African chameleons. Journal of Biogeography 35, 1402-1414.
20. Bateman, M. D., Buckland, P. C., Chase, B., Frederick, C. D., Gaunt, G. D. (2008) The Late-Devensian pro-glacial Lake Humber: new evidence from littoral deposits at Ferrybridge, Yorkshire, England. Boreas 37, 195-210.
21. Telfer M., Bateman M. D., Carr A, Chase B. M. (2008) Testing the applicability of a Standardized Growth Curve (SGC) for quartz OSL dating: Kalahari dunes, South Africa. Quaternary Geochronology 3, 137-142.
22. Chase, B. M., and Meadows, M. E. (2007). Late Quaternary dynamics of southern Africa's winter-rainfall zone. Earth-Science Reviews 84, 103-138.
23. Chase, B. M. and Thomas, D. S. G. (2007). Multiphase late Quaternary aeolian sediment accumulation in western South Africa: timing and relationship to palaeoclimatic changes inferred from the marine record. Quaternary International 166, 29-41.
24. Chase, B. M. and Thomas, D. S. G. (2006). Late Quaternary dune accumulation along the western margin of South Africa: distinguishing forcing mechanisms through the analysis of migratory dune forms. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 251, 318-333.
25. Carr, A. S., Thomas, D. S. G., Bateman, M. D., Meadows, M. E. and Chase, B. (2006). Late Quaternary palaeoenvironments of the winter-rainfall zone of southern Africa: palynological and sedimentological evidence from the Agulhas. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 239 (1-2), 147-165.
International prizes, grants and fellowships of learned societies won in open competition:
• European Research Council Starting Grant (Principal Investigator): Rock Hyrax Middens and Climate Change in Southern Africa during the last 50,000 years. (€1,500,000)
• European Research Council Advanced Grant: Tracing the evolution of symbolically mediated behaviours within variable environments in Africa and Europe. (€2,500,000)
• Australian Research Grant (Team member): Technology and behavioural evolution in late Pleistocene Africa, Europe and Australia (AUS$410,000)
• Royal Society Newton International Fellowship (£118,000).
• Leverhulme Trust Research Grant (Co-Investigator): Novel biomolecular insights into dryland ecosystem dynamics (£92,500).
• Leverhulme Trust Research Grant: Fossilised Herbivore Middens: New Perspectives on SW African Climate Change (£114,000).
Other ongoing international research collaborations:
• Collaborating on a project developing and exploring lake and wetland palaeoenvironmental archives of the Western Cape, South Africa with particular emphasis on extending the functional chronologies of pollen and stable isotope records through the application of luminescence dating techniques. Collaborating with Andrew Carr at the University of Leicester, David Roberts at the South African Geological Survey and Michael Meadows at the University of Cape Town.
• Collaborating on a project expanding the palaeoenvironmental records from Verlorenvlei in the Western Cape, South Africa. Emphasis is on the last 2,000 years and the comparison of submodern - Little Ice Age signals between temperate (Verlorenvlei) and tropical (Lake Sibaya, South Africa) systems. Collaborating with Curt Stager at Paul Smith’s College, New York, Frank Neumann, Munich University, Germany and Michael Meadows at the University of Cape Town.
• Collaborating on a project comparing the full suite of available palaeoenvironmental records from southern Africa with atmospheric general circulation model simulations. Exploring similarities between the palaeoenvironmental records and the 6 and 21 ka simulations of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP) in an effort to better identify the roles and dynamics of the major climatic controls. Collaborating with Simon Brewer at the University of Utah, USA.