UCL Department of Geography
Dr Viv Jones
  
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Dr Viv Jones

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About

Viv-Jones.jpgDepartment of Geography,
University College London,
Pearson Building,
Gower Street,
London,
WC1E 6BT.

Tel: +44 (0)20 7679 0555
Fax: +44 (0)20 7679 0565
e-mail: vivienne.jones@ucl.ac.uk

Biography

Viv’s interest in environmental science and freshwaters started at an early age with trips to local rivers and ponds followed by a BSc in Geography and Botany at the University of Liverpool. She then joined the Geography Department at University College London firstly as a PhD student working with Rick Battarbee on post-glacial lake acidification and then as a Research Fellow. She is now employed as a HEFCE-funded Principal Research Fellow.

Viv is currently Secretary of the International Society for Diatom Research and a member of the NERC peer review committee.

Research Interests

Research Profile

 An environmental scientist interested in the application of multi-proxy palaeoecological techniques to the understanding of present day environmental problems. Current research interests are wide ranging and cover the following:

Major grants since 1990

  • 2006-2011 CARBO-North Quantifying the carbon budget in Northern Russia: past, present and future. Funding Source, EU Framework 6.
  • 2003 NERC Assessing regional climate signals from delta 18O diatom records in annually laminated lake sediments NER/B/S/2003/00288
  • 2000-2003 SPICE. Sustainable Pechora in a Changing Environment. Funding Source, EU INCO-COPERNICUS
  • 1998-2001 TUNDRA. Tundra Degradation in the Russian Arctic. funding source EU FW4
  • 2000-2005 NORPEC. Norwegian PalaeoEnvironments and Climates as reconstructed from lake sediments. Funding source NAVF (Norwegian Science Research Council)
  • 2000 NERC Palaeolimnological evidence for circumarctic climate warming in Northern Russia (NER/B/S/2000/00733)
  • 1995-1998 Lake sediment records of recent atmospheric pollution and environmental change on Spitzbergen. Funding source NAVF .
  • 1995-1997 NERC Diatom biodiversity and distribution in maritime and continental Antarctica. Joint with Dr Steve Juggins, University of Newcastle.
  • 1995-1997 NERC The use of lake sediments to determine the history of ecosystem change at Signy Island within the Holocene.

Current Teaching

Diatoms

Diatoms are microscopic unicellular algae which grow in a wide range of habitats in damp soils, lakes, rivers and seas. Extremely common in almost all freshwater and marine environments they are an excellent ecological indicator species sensitive to acidity, nutrients and salinity. Since they have a short life cycle they respond quickly to changes in conditions. Modern communities are used by environmental scientists for monitoring water quality especially in relation to the problems of acidification and eutrophication. Diatoms also preserve well in many lake and marine sediments and thus can be used reconstruct past conditions on a range of timescales from decades to tens of thousands of years.

I teach an intensive one week course which provides a thorough grounding in diatom analysis and its applications, and assumes no prior knowledge of diatoms.

ECRC short courses

I also contribute to the Masters in Quaternary Science, jointly taught with staff from The Department of Geography, Royal Holloway University of London.

Consultancy and Outreach

Viv is a director and company secretary of ENSIS an Environmental Consultancy Company based at UCL

Research Students

PhD research students

  • 2005 - present Angela Self NERC/CASE award Chironomids and climate in the Russian arctic
  • 2003 - present Jonathan Tyler NERC/CASE award Diatoms and delta 18O
  • 1999 - 2004 Gina Clarke. The relationship between diatoms and climate in a European mountain lake training set: implications for detecting the Little Ice Age in lake sediments from Central Norway.
  • 1996 - 2000 Patrick Rioual. Reconstruction of palaeoclimatic and palaeolimnological changes during the last interglacial from sedimentary diatom assemblages in the French Massif Central
  • 1994 – 2000 Nadia Solovieva A palaeoecological study of holocene environmental change in a small upland lake from the Kola Peninsula, Russia
  • 1993 -1998 NERC/CASE student Philippa Noon with the British Antarctic Survey. Lake sediments and climatic change in Antarctica

Masters Students

  • 2006 Liam Macrae Evidence for global warming at 5 Russian Arctic lakes
  • 2005 Virginia Panizzo Diatom evidence for the impact of the ‘8.2 k event’ in Norway
  • 2004 Claire Twiddle The impact of Iron Age industrial activities on the landscape of the Seille Valley, northeast France
  • 2003 Francis Attwood An assessment of the acidification history of Loch Cor’a’Ghrunnda using diatoms and other proxies
  • 2003 Jonathan Tyler Holocene palaeoproductivity in Sweden
  • 2003 Giovanni Contracello Productivity changes in Lago Nemi, Italy
  • 2002 Gemma Swindle Climate history of Peru from lake sediments
  • 2000 Zoe Hazzell Acid deposition in Massif Central, France
  • 1998 Emily Bradshaw Diatom-based reconstruction of environmental change at the Younger Dryas - Holocene transition, Kråkenes, Norway.
  • 1997 Anja Nimmergut. Late glacial oscillations at Lago Grande di, Monticchio.
  • 1996 Coral Dyson. Antarctic tephrological studies at Midge Lake, Livingstone Island, South Shetland Islands and at Sombre Lake Island, South Orkney
  • 1996 Emma Devoy High resolution diatom - based reconstruction of abrupt environmental changes at Lake Albano, central Italy, during the LGM.