• Quaternary Palaeoclimate & Palaeoenvironments
• Fluvial & Ecological Processes
• Palaeobiology & Palaeoenvironments

Research Interests

• Ostracoda as palaeoenvironmental indicators
• Late Quaternary history of the Ponto-Caspian and Aral Sea regions
• Geoarchaeology (landscape and environmental change)
• Late Triassic to early Jurassic environments of NW Europe
• Stable-isotope analysis of natural waters
• Stable-isotope records of past environmental change

Biography

• 1984 BSc Leicester University
• 1985 MSc in Micropalaeontology, UC London
• 1989 PhD in Early Jurassic ostracods form north-west Europe, UC London
• 1989 to 1992 Leverhulme-funded post-doc at UEA, Norwich
• 1992 to 1994 NERC-funded ODP post-doc University of Wales, Aberystwyth
• 1994 to 1997 NERC-funded post-doc at UEA, Norwich
• 1998 to 2004 University of Newcastle, Teaching and Research position
• 2005 to present University of Birmingham, GEES

Current / Recent Research

Much of my research focuses on a group of calcareous microfossils, the Ostracoda (or ostracods).   An ostracod can be thought of as a microscopic shrimp-like organism (usually less than 1mm long) living inside a bi-valved carbonate shell or carapace. These little bugs have been around for the last 500 million years and live today in just about every aquatic environment. Their fossils can be used to date rocks, record major changes in the world’s oceans, trace climatic changes such as sea-level rise amongst other uses and even track pollution. They are still alive today (with thousands of living species known) and can be found swimming or crawling, often in great numbers, everywhere from garden ponds to coastal rock pools, rivers, lakes and oceans. One group has even learnt to survive out of water.

I have a particular  interest in the geological record of ostracods around the period of the latest Triassic and Early Jurassic (about 200-174 million years ago during one of the ‘Big-Five’ Phanerozoic extinction events). Another part of my research focuses on using these fascinating little bugs to tell us more about the rapid, global climatic changes that occurred between about 15,000 and 10,000 years ago. My studies concentrate on a region of the world that encompassing the great inland seas of SW Eurasia, the Aral, Caspian and Black seas.

Geoarchaeology
I’m also involved with a number of archaeological projects in the north east of the UK (Bamburgh Research Project, Howick Project) where I am involved in various aspects of geoarchaeology, landscape and sea-level change, sedimentary coring and description and analysis of biological remains.

Water Quality and Isotope Studies
I’m currently employed as a Research Fellow in GEES, University of Birmingham, as the Laboratory Manager for the  Stable-Isotope and Luminescence Laboratory which was commissioned in December 2005 (SILLA).

Our laboratory focuses on the stable-isotope analysis of hydrological, biological and geological samples from a wide range of projects, including cave systems, rivers, lakes, coastal sea-water and deep ocean settings.

Key Publications since 2001

Central Asian climates

Chen, F., Yu, Z., Yang, M., Ito, E., Wang, S., Madsen, D.B., Huang, X., Zhao, Y., Sato, T., Birks, J., Boomer, I., An, C. and Wünnemann, B. 2008. Holocene moisture evolution in Arid Central Asia and its out-of-phase relationship with Asian monsoon history. Quaternary Science Reviews. 27. 351-364.

Boomer, I., Wünnemann, B., Mackay, A.W., Austin, P., Sorrel, P., Reinhardt, C., Keyser, D. & Fontugne, M. 2009. Advances in understanding the late Holocene history of the Aral Sea. Quaternary International. 194. 79-90.

Ecology of Recent Ostracoda

Boomer, I., Horne, D.J. & Smith, R.J. 2006. Freshwater Ostracoda (Crustacea) from the Assynt region, NW Scotland: new Scottish records and a checklist of Scottish freshwater. Bulletin de l’Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique. 76: 111-123.

Boomer, I. and Attwood, F.V. 2007. Ostracods and organic pollution in a small urban catchment, NE England. Journal of Micropalaeontology. 26. 117-125.

Mischke, S., Almogi-Labin, A., Ortal, R., Schwab, M.J. and Boomer, I. 2009. Quantitative reconstruction of lake conductivity in the Quaternary of the Near East using ostracods. Journal of Paleolimnology. DOI 10.1007/s10933-009-9359-y.

Triassic-Jurassic Ostracoda

Boomer, I., Lord, A., Crasquin, S. 2008. The extinction of the Metacopina (Ostracoda). Senckenbergiana lethaea. 88 (1) 47-53.

Ainsworth, N.R. & Boomer, I. 2009. Triassic. In: Whittaker, J. E. & Hart, M. B. (eds) Ostracods in British Stratigraphy. The Micropalaeontological Society, Special Publications, 165–174.

Boomer, I. & Ainsworth, N.R. 2009. Lower Jurassic (Hettangian-Toarcian). In: Whittaker, J. E. & Hart, M. B. (eds) Ostracods in British Stratigraphy. The Micropalaeontological Society, Special Publications, 175-197.

Boomer, I., Lord, A.R., Page, K., Bown, P., Lowry, F.M.D. and Riding, J.B. 2009. The biostratigraphy of the Upper late Pliensbachian-Toarcian (Lower Jurassic) sequence at Ilminster, Somerset. Journal of Micropalaeontology. 28: 67-85.

Isotope studies

Bradley, C., Baker, A., Cumberland, S., Boomer, I. & Morrissey, I. 2007. Dynamics of water movement and trends in dissolved carbon in a headwater wetland in a permeable catchment. Wetlands. 27 (4), 1066-1080.

Carstea, E.M., Baker, A., Pavelescu, G. & Boomer, I. 2009.  Continuous fluorescence assessment of organic matter variability on the Bournbrook River, Birmingham, UK. Hydrological Processes 23 (13): 1937-1946.

Cook, S.J., Robinson, Z.P., Fairchild, I.J., Knight, P.G., Waller, R.I. & Boomer, I. 2009. Role of glaciohydraulic supercooling in the formation of stratified facies basal ice: Svínafellsjökull and Skaftafellsjökull, southeast Iceland. Boreas, 10.1111/j.1502-3885.2009.00112.x.

Geoarchaeology

Boomer, I., Shiel, R. and Stevenson, T. 2007. Geomorphological and Palaeoenvironmental Analysis. In: Waddington, C. (Ed.) Mesolithic settlement in the North Sea Basin. A case study from Howick, North-East England. Oxbow Books. 163-181.

Boomer, I., Waddington, C., Stevenson, A.C. and Hamilton, D. 2007. Holocene coastal change and Geoarchaeology at Howick, Northumberland. The Holocene. 17 (1) 89-104.

Please contact me for PDFs of the journal articles (i.boomer@bham.ac.uk)

Date Profile Last Updated: 26/08/2009