Dr Vasile (Lica) Ersek

Post-Doctoral Researcher

Email:	vasilee@earth.ox.ac.uk
TEL:	+44 (0)1865 272069
FAX:	+44 (0)1865 272072
Homepage:	http://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~vasilee

Research Profile

Understanding the causes, magnitude and impacts of past climate changes is critical to predicting the present and future response of the climate system to global warming. As such, my research investigates the interplay and feedbacks between land, oceans and the atmosphere with special focus on stable isotope geochemistry. My aim is to obtain a thorough understanding of processes controlling stable isotopes in terrestrial and marine environments and to develop the analytical and statistical skills necessary to measure and interpret their variability in the geologic record.

My current research at Oxford investigates the past behavior of the monsoon in southeast Asia using speleothems from Laos, while in the past I focused on the development of accurate U-Th chronologies in southwest Oregon to study the timing of speleothem growth in the last 380 000 years, constraining the amplitude and timing of Holocene and last interglacial temperature change in the Pacific Northwest, and ascertaining the influence of storm track variability on the δ¹⁸O composition of rainwater.

Selected Publications

Ersek, V., Mix, A.C., Clark, P.U., 2010, Variations of δ¹⁸O in rainwater from southwestern Oregon, Journal of Geophysical Research, 115, D09109 doi:10.1029/2009JD013345
Ersek, V., Hostetler, S.W., Cheng, H., Clark, P.U., Anslow, F.S., Mix, A.C., Edwards, R.L., 2009: Environmental influences on speleothem growth in southwestern Oregon during the last 380 000 years, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v. 279, p. 316-325, doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2009.01.008
Rushdi, A., Clark, P., Mix, A. Ersek,V., Simoneit, B. Cheng, H., Edwards, R.L., 2010: Composition and sources of lipid compounds in speleothem calcite from southwestern Oregon and their paleoenvironmental implications, Environmental Earth Sciences, doi:10.1007/s12665-010-0613-4