James Bakis

Research Interests

James is currently undertaking an Honours year as part of a Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Advanced Studies (Advanced), majoring in Geology & Geophysics and Geography. His research interests relate to climatic variability across all spatiotemporal scales throughout geologic time, and how various geochemical and sedimentological parameters in lacustrine and marine sedimentary sequences can serve as proxies for inferring past geomorphic and ecological responses to such variability, thereby enabling vital and detailed paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental reconstructions.

Research Project

 Project Title: Environmental History of the Monaro Tablelands, NSW

Supervisor: A/Prof. Daniel Penny

This project aims to construct a sediment-based paleoenvironmental record for the Monaro Tablelands in south-eastern NSW, Australia. The Monaro is an economically and culturally important pastoral region, yet climatically marginal and thus especially threatened by rising temperatures and changes to the amount, duration and timing of precipitation. This project will reveal the Holocene palaeoecological and geomorphic responses to climate forcing observed in the stratigraphic data of lagoonal systems across the Monaro, focusing in particular on the ‘Holocene Climatic Optimum’ interval as a possible analogue for ‘far-future’ warming projections for the region. In so doing, this project will act as a valuable frame of reference through which climatic and environmental projections for the region can be assessed and local climate adaptation and environmental management strategies can be informed.