Facilities & Resources

Palaeoclimate facilities

The lab is equipped to receive, store, process, and analyze sediment cores for environmental and climatic analysis.

Two lab facilities are available for processing and proxy analysis.  The lab houses an industrial reach-in cooler for sample cold storage.  The lab has materials and equipment for whole-core magnetic susceptibility, core-splitting, surface preparation, sediment description and smear-slide mineralogy, and prepared core photography.  Drying ovens, muffle furnaces, desiccating chambers, and precision balances are available for bulk density and Loss-on-Ignition.  Basic grain-size analysis  can be done with using sieves.  A fume hood and dedicated chemical storage spaces are provided for sample preparations.  Samples can further be prepared for isotopic analysis in the Stable Isotope Lab.

Laboratory work stations are loaded with the CSDCO’s Corelyzer software for core correlation and visualization.

 

Dr. Aubrey Hillman (left) and graduate student Hali Thurber (right) raising a Livingston core at Laguna Sausacocha, Peru.

Geospatial resources:

The Environmental Archaeology Lab is equipped for regional – local scale paeoecological modeling in a geospatial environment.  We analyze and model modern environments as analogues to palaeoenvironmental dynamics, detect and map archaeological features using non-invasive approaches, and model socio-ecological dynamics within explicitly spatial frameworks.

Our lab has close working relationships with the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies at the University of Arkansas, where additional resources for geospatial archaeology are available.

 

An ASTER satellite image (left) shows the desert landscape around the archaeological site of Cerro Baul, Peru.  Visually, the landscape looks homogeneous.  A high resolution map of the geological resources produced from ASTER data (right) reveals a highly variable and localized geological environment, helping to reconstruct resource networks.

Equipment available through the Environmental Archaeology lab covers a broad range of geoarchaeological applications:

 

Soil/sediment sampling:

Terrestrial sediments/soils

  • JMC Soil sampling probe (1.9 cm diameter probe with extension rods)
  • AMS soil core sampler (5.08 x 15.24 cm corer for in-tact samples and augers for loose sediments.  Extension rods to sample up to 3 m deep)

Lacustrine sediments:

  • Livingstone-type drive rod piston corer (5 cm x 1 m, with extension rods for lakes up to 20 m deep)

 

Soil/sediment proxy analysis:

  • Thermo Scientific Lindberg Blue M muffle furnace
  • Thermo Scientific Precision drying oven
  • GCA Mechanical Convention drying oven
  • Sartorius Quintix64-1S analytical balance
  • Boekel dessication chamber
  • AmScope stereo zoom microscope with integrated 5 MP camera
  • Bartington MS2 magnetic susceptibility meter with MS2C  core logging loop (70 mm), point, and down-hole sensors
  • utensils and labware for volumetric sampling, processing, and isotopic prep

 

Survey and mapping:

  • two Trimble TDC150 GNSS handheld receivers with integrated GIS (sub-meter accuracy)
  • Pentax R-325 Total Station
  • TopCon ES-65 Total Station
  • DJI Phantom 3 drone

 

Ground-based geophysical surveys:

  • a GSSI SIR-200 ground penetrating radar controller with 400 and 900 MHz antennae
  • a Geonics EM38B dual phase electromagnetic induction meter
  • a Geoscan Research RM15 resistivity meter with multiple width probe arrays
  • a TR Systems twin-probe resistivity meter
  • a Geoscan Research MPX15 resistivity multiplexer
  • a GMC GEOhm-C Earth Tester resistivity meter
  • a Bartington MS2 magnetic susceptibility point sensor

 

Geospatial modeling and analysis:

  • Dell Precision workstations running Windows
  • ArcGIS Desktop Advanced Licensing (v. 10.4 and PRO)
  • QGIS
  • Trimble Pathfinder Office
  • ERDAS IMAGINE for image processing
  • PCI Geomatica with EASI modeling, OrthoEngine, and SAR polarimetry tools
  • Matlab
  • R and RStudio with applications-specific packages
  • Google Earth Pro
  • Adobe Creative Suite
  • NetLogo for Agent-based modeling
  • applications-specific utilities for the equipment above