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A new £6.7 million research centre focusing on environmental change has been opened at Queen's University in Belfast.
The CHRONO Centre for Climate, the Environment and Chronology - the first of its kind in Ireland - was officially launched by world-famous geoscientist Professor Minze Stuiver.
He is a renowned expert in radiocarbon dating - the method used by archaeologists and geoscientists to establish the age of carbon-based materials up to over 50,000 years old - one of the areas in which the new CHRONO Centre is leading international research.
Professor Gerry McCormac, Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Queen's, said: "The CHRONO Centre extends our capability and will help further develop our research, contributing to our knowledge of climate change and carbon cycling."
Funded by the Atlantic Philanthropies and the Department for Employment and Learning, the Centre in Fitzwilliam Street was established to help bring together interdisciplinary research on past climate and environmental change, the relationship between human society and the environment, and the modern environment.
The facility includes chronological tools including a £1m accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) which can examine climate change, assist in forensic investigations, identify sources of pollution and provide carbon dates on material up to 55,000 years old.
Staff from the School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology and the Environmental Engineering Research Centre (EERC) within the School of Planning, Architecture and Civil Engineering (SPACE) work at the centre.
(PR/JM)
