Student develops research technique
March 14, 2011
Ben Gaglioti, a PhD student working with Professor Matthew Wooller in the Alaska Stable Isotope Facility and the UAF Water & Environmental Research Center, has developed a new technique for understanding what vegetation grew in Alaska tens
of thousands of years ago. Gaglioti examined fossilized grass leaves for clues about
the ecology of Alaska when, now extinct, bison (amongst a host of other large fauna)
roamed Alaska at the time part area known as Beringia – when the land bridge between
Russia and Alaska existed.
Gaglioti’s work was recently published in the Review of Paleobotany and Palynology, “Developing graminoid cuticle analysis for application to Beringian Palaeoecology.”
He is also a contributor to another paper with Matthew Wooller as lead author to appear
soon in Journal of Quaternary Science, “The detailed paleoecology of a mid-Wisconsinan interstadial (~32,000 14C years) vegetation surface from interior Alaska.”