Queen's University Belfast

Susan Lyttle

Qualifications

MSc (with commendation) in Dating and Chronology
BSc (Hons) in Archaeology and Palaeoecology

Postgraduate

Address

School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology (GAP)
Queen’s University Belfast
Belfast, BT7 1NN
Northern Ireland, UK

Current Research: Environmental Change (EC)

Developing an Automated Pollen System

Pollen analysis has a varied range of applications within vegetation and environmental reconstructions, climate change studies, allergy research, melissopalynology and forensic investigations. However it is a laborious and time consuming process. Automation of this process could lead to objective and rapid results with fine temporal resolution both in sampling and in the identification of pollen taxa.

An automated low cost system has been developed by Massey University in New Zealand called Classifynder which can locate, photograph and identify pollen taxa. This project aims to extensively develop this work by identifying and recording pollen taxa images ( i ) to build a comparable and exchangeable reference library database; ( ii ) to establish protocols to produce consistent, repeatable and acceptable tested results comparable to counts completed by palynologists; and ( iii ) to produce results that would be acceptable for publication.

Project Supervisors

Prof Keith Bennett
Dr Maarten Blaauw