Dr. Olivier Evrard (Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (CEA-CNRS-Univ. Paris-Saclay)
Radionuclides from nuclear testing are found in the environment worldwide and provide the privileged markers for dating Anthropocene sediment archives. The onset of these emissions coincides with the Great Acceleration period and allows the history of associated disturbances to be reconstructed. However, very little is known about the distribution of radioactive fallout in the southern hemisphere (e.g. emissions related to nuclear tests in French Polynesia that were detected in Argentina). These dating tools will help us to understand better and quantify the impacts of global change on the recent degradation of water and soil resources in the Pampas Biome region, which covers southern Brazil, Uruguay, and northeastern Argentina and is being studied by French and South American partners in the framework of the CNRS (IRP) international research project CELESTE Lab.
Olivier Evrard is Research Director (senior researcher) at CEA (French Atomic and Alternative Energy Commission). More information on his career can be found at https://www.lsce.ipsl.fr/pisp/olivier-evrard/.
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