Research and Fieldwork

Peak District Fieldwork, 8th-9th June 2009

A team of FIREMAN researchers from the University of Liverpool spent two days in the Peak District National Park taking sediment cores to gain better understanding of past fire regimes.

Robinson’s Moss and Alport Moor, Peak District National Park

 Karen Halsall, University of Liverpool

The Upland Moorlands of the Peak District National Park are one of the habitats targeted under the European BiodivERsA Project to identify natural and anthropogenic palaeofire regimes and their associated biodiversity.

Field work has recently been undertaken by a team of researchers from The University of Liverpool to collect sediments with a Holocene record of charcoal fragments at two sites, Robinson’s Moss and Alport Moor.

 

Samples from the surface to the bedrock were collected over 2 days.

Previous work has been done at these sites by John Tallis, who sampled the basal 1.7m at Robinson’s Moss from the cleaned-up face of a near vertical gully side from a depth of 4.1 m and identified peat initiation at a  depth of 3.8 m on Alport Moor.

 

Mr Tallis kindly met with the team recently to discuss his work in this area of the Peak District. The 4.95 m of sediment collected from Robinson’s Moss and 2.18 m from Alport Moor are currently undergoing analysis.

 

Both these sites have suffered from severe peat erosion in the recent past with deep gullies and very little Sphagnum spp. visible.

 

Major accidental fires have also occurred in this region particularly during years with high summer temperatures. Results of this work will used to inform management policies on future fire regimes such as those used to control Calluna vulgaris for maximising grouse breeding success.

Field work in Peak District National Park

Tim Shaw, University of Liverpool

Colleagues from the University of Liverpool FIREMAN project recently travelled to the nearby peat-uplands of the Peak District National Park to retrieve sediment cores from previously studied sites at Robinson’s Moss and Alport Moor (John Tallis). Well dated, high-resolution palaeoecological records already exists for these locations, however evidence regarding the nature and timing of fire history throughout the Holocene is not as well understood.

Thus the goal of this field expedition was to core, as accurately as possible, the same sites which John Tallis sampled in order to reconstruct fire history throughout the Holocene using new detailed charcoal information. By combining this new data with known changes in the pollen spectra, this research will help in our understanding of the response of these upland habitats to fire which of course maybe natural and/or anthropogenic in origin. This will ultimately help in future management strategies in maintaining and prolonging the life of these fragile environments. 

Using a 1m long, 5cm diameter Russian sediment corer, multiple pilot cores were sunk at each site so that we were confident that the peat depths were similar to previous findings. Peat sediment cores of 4.95m (Robinson’s Moss) and 2.18m (Alport Moor) were then retrieved and bagged in the field ready to be sub-sampled for charcoal analysis back at the Department of Geography, University of Liverpool. As the photos suggest, distinct charcoal horizons are clearly evident within both the sequences sampled, indicating fire has been a prominent factor affecting these landscapes throughout the period of peat deposition. We look forward to seeing the results.