Pollen and plant macrofossil records from two lakes on northernmost Skagi peninsula, northern Iceland, reflect a progressive closing of the vegetation cover during the early Holocene. This development was connected with the succession from an initial herb-tundra phase characterized by Oxyria digyna, Poaceae and Caryophyllaceae, through an intermediate dwarf-shrub phase dominated by Salix and Empet

Integration of reflective writing in the curriculum can support subject learning as well as the development of generic skills.

Basal sediments of Lake Torfadalsvatn, northern Iceland, record changes in terrestrial and limnic environments in the period 11,300-9000 14C yr B.P. These changes were probably forced by climate and connected with displacements of the marine polar front and sea-ice margin. Pollen, spores, green algae (Pediastrum), saturation isothermal remanent magnetization, and carbon content of the basal sedime

A detailed reconstruction of deglacial relative sea-level changes at the northern coast of Iceland, based on the litho- and biostratigraphy of lake basins, indicates an overall fall in relative sea level of about 45 m between 11 300 and 9100 BP, corresponding to an isostatic rebound of 77 m. The overall regression was interrupted by two minor transgressions during the late Younger Dryas and in ear

Ice-core records of the concentration of atmospheric CO2 and its stable isotope ratio (δ13C(a)) have shown that the global C cycle has not remained in steady-state over the past 11000 yr, implying a possible change in vegetation activity over this period. Here we evaluated the ecophysiological responses of the dwarf willow (Salix herbacea) over the past 9000 yr by measuring the stable carbon isoto

Aim: The paper addresses the classical question of possible plant survival in Iceland during the last glacial period in the light of a palaeobotanical record from northern Iceland, spanning the period 11,300-9000 BP, including the Younger Dryas stadial. We review the Late Cenozoic fossil plant record, the past debate on glacial plant refugia in Iceland, and the evidence for ice-free areas during t

The transition to green economies has been mediated by concrete cases and experiments in a variety of different industrial and social sectors. What is lacking, is research that would synthesize key findings and “lessons learned” across a variety of cases. In this study, we explore ten cases of green economy of different sectors and approaches from five European countries and identify factors that

The occurrence of an early Preboreal climatic cooling/oscillation (PBO) in lacustrine and glacial records from northwest Europe, Iceland and Greenland is reviewed and documented. The often subtle response of the proxy records to this oscillation, in combination with its short duration, make it difficult to detect. Owing to its chronostratigraphic position between the 10000-9900 and 9600-9500 14C p

Major water infrastructure projects like dams can provide substantial benefits such as food and drinking water security, hydropower generation, and flood control. But these benefits may come at a (too) high cost of large scale ecological alterations or adverse social impacts such as involuntary resettlements. If these costs are neglected, an investment decision will hardly be efficient. In this ch

For the last ten years, the notion of a green economy has become increasingly attractive to policy makers. However, green economy covers a lot of diverse concepts and its links with sustainability are not always clear. In this article, we focus on definitions of green economy and related concepts and an evaluation of these concepts against the criterion of strong and weak sustainability. The artic

Stable carbon isotope measurements (δ13C) made on Quaternary sequences of terrestrial plant subfossils are frequently used to infer palaeoclimatic trends. However, differential decomposition of individual constituents during incorporation of plant material into lake sediments could influence these interpretations. Therefore, we investigated down-core variations in the carbon isotope composition (δ

A stomatal-based method of palaeo-CO2 estimation has been applied to a temporally detailed sequence of leaves from a high-latitude lake (68°N) in northern Sweden spanning the last 9000 years. The resulting atmospheric CO2 reconstruction documents the onset of a gradual increase c. 5000 years before present indicating that the carbon cycle has not been in steady state over this time. Stable carbon

This article provides a review of the application of stomatal frequency analysis to fossil leaves in the reconstruction of past atmospheric CO2 concentrations. It presents the physiological basis of the method, an overview of its application to leaves of Quaternary age, and an assessment of its potential and limitations. It also includes a description of the successive stages in a stomatal frequen

Nanowire geometries are leading contenders for future low-power transistor design. In this study, low-frequency noise is measured and evaluated in highly scaled III-V nanowire metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) and in planar III-V MOSFETs to investigate to what extent the device geometry affects the noise performance. Number fluctuations are identified as the dominant noi

We consider how ecosystem services can be incorporated into water infrastructureplanning by studying the projected deepening of the Lower Weser river channel inGermany. We recalculate the project’s benefitcost ratio by integrating the monetaryvalue of changes in different ecosystem services, as follows: (1) the restoration costsof a mitigation measure for a loss in fresh water supply for agricultu