Blytt–Sernander

Blytt–Sernander
Name	Blytt–Sernander
Occupation	Biogeoscience concept

Blytt–Sernander.

Overview

The Blytt–Sernander scheme is a palaeoecological framework linking postglacial vegetation phases to climate shifts, associated with figures such as Axel Blytt, Rutger Sernander, Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace and contemporaries at institutions like the University of Oslo, Uppsala University, Royal Society, British Museum, and Smithsonian Institution. It connects pollen sequences from sites studied by researchers working with methods developed at organizations including the Geological Survey of Norway, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Natural History Museum, London, Yale University, Harvard University and influenced later syntheses by scientists at the Max Planck Society, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The scheme provided a framework used in comparative work across regions such as Scandinavia, Iberian Peninsula, British Isles, Greenland, Iceland, Central Europe, Russian Plain, North America, Alps, Carpathians and Fennoscandia.

History of the Blytt–Sernander Scheme

The scheme emerged from 19th and early 20th century exchanges among naturalists like Axel Blytt, Rutger Sernander, Charles Lyell, James Hutton, Alfred Wegener, Svante Arrhenius, Julius von Haast and field workers associated with museums and universities such as Kew Gardens, Uppsala University, University of Copenhagen, Stockholm University, University of Cambridge and University of Oxford. Early stratigraphers compared peat and lake deposits from sites investigated by teams connected to the Geological Survey of Sweden and the Geological Survey of Norway, and corresponded with botanists at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters and the French Academy of Sciences. Later integration with radiometric techniques involved collaborations with Berkeley Lab, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, University of Chicago and laboratories influenced by work at the International Atomic Energy Agency and Radiocarbon Laboratory networks.

Climatic and Environmental Interpretations

Interpreters mapped Blytt–Sernander phases onto climatic episodes discussed by scholars at institutions such as Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, United Nations Environment Programme, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, European Geosciences Union and regional programs like SCAN-PEAT and projects funded by the European Research Council. Comparative studies linked phases to events researched by teams studying the Younger Dryas, Holocene climatic optimum, Little Ice Age, Medieval Warm Period, 8.2 kiloyear event, Bond events, and influences documented in cores from Lake Baikal, Loch Lomond, Lake Suigetsu, Lake Malawi, Cariaco Basin, Gulf of Mexico and Bering Sea.

Methods and Evidence

Evidence underpinning the scheme came from palynology, macrofossils, stratigraphy, isotope geochemistry and radiometric dating used by laboratories such as Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde, ETH Zurich, Institut Pasteur, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and university departments at University of Copenhagen, Uppsala University, University of Bergen, University of Stockholm, University of Helsinki, Trondheim and University of Tromsø. Key methods paralleled developments by scientists like Hubert Lamb, Charles Elton, W. S. Broecker, Gordon J. Walker, Sir Nicholas Shackleton, Hans Oeschger, Willard Libby and G. S. Callendar. Techniques included pollen counting championed in labs at Natural History Museum, London and Swedish Museum of Natural History, tephrochronology used by teams studying eruptions like Krakatoa, Mount Vesuvius, Mount St. Helens, Eyjafjallajökull and Laki, and dendrochronology advanced at University of Arizona and University of Cambridge.

Regional Applications and Variations

Regional adaptations applied the scheme in research led from the University of Oslo, Uppsala University, University of Helsinki, University of Warsaw, Charles University, University of Munich, University of Zurich, University of Vienna, University of Bergen, University of Iceland, University of Edinburgh, Trinity College Dublin, University of Glasgow, University College Dublin, University of Toronto, McGill University, University of British Columbia, Yale University and Princeton University. Field studies compared sequences across the Scandinavian Ice Sheet, Fennoscandian Shield, Baltic Sea, North Sea, Atlantic Ocean and continental interiors influenced by phenomena studied by researchers focusing on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, North Atlantic Oscillation, Arctic Amplification, Laurentide Ice Sheet and Cordilleran Ice Sheet.

Criticisms and Revisions

Critiques originated in debates involving researchers associated with Nature, Science, Quaternary Research, Journal of Quaternary Science, The Holocene, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, and institutions including Royal Society of London, National Academy of Sciences, European Geosciences Union and academic groups at University College London, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, Stockholm University and Uppsala University. Revisions incorporated high-resolution records from projects such as INTIMATE, PAGES, ICE-CHRONOLOGY and multi-proxy syntheses drawing on work by Edvardsson, Anderson, Innes, Bennett, Tomas Johansson and others at centers like Scott Polar Research Institute and Smithsonian Institution. Ongoing debates reference datasets from Greenland Ice Core Project, European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica, NGRIP, GRIP, GISP2 and marine cores studied at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Category:Palaeoecology