Roger Byrne Biography

Interests: historical biogeography, vegetation change, prehistoric agriculture, pollen analysis. Mr. Byrne is currently conducting research on the history of late-Pleistocene/Holocene environmental change in California and Mexico. He is also Curator of Fossil Pollen for the Museum of Paleontology at Berkeley.

Professor Byrne heads up the Quaternary Paleoecology Laboratory in McCone Hall

Recent publications:

2002. Late Holocene Vegetation Change in the Sierra Madre Oriental of Central Mexico. (with Mariaelena Conserva) Quaternary Research, 58, 122-129, 2002.

2001. Carbon-Isotope, Diatom, and Pollen Evidence for Late Holocene Salinity Change in a Brackish Marsh in the San Francisco Estuary. (with Lynn Ingram, Scott Starratt, Frances Malamud-Roam, Joshua N. Collins and Mark E. Conrad) Quaternary Research 55: 66-76.

2000. Invasion of Mediterranean Weeds into California before 1769. (with S. Mensing) Fremontia 27: 6-9

1999. A 560 Year Record of Santa Ana Fires Reconstructed from Charcoal Deposits in the Santa Barbara Basin California. (with S. Mensing and J. Michaelsen) Quaternary Research 51: 295-305

1998. Areal Variation in Woodland Food Plant Potential around Crawford Lake, pp., 121-138 in Iroquoian Peoples of the Land of Rocks and Water, A.D. 1000-1650: A Study in Settlement Archaeology. Vol 1. William D. Finlayson (ed.). London Museum of Archaeology, London, Ontario, Canada.

1998. Iroquoian Agriculture and Forest Clearance at Crawford Lake, Ontario, pp., 94-107 in Iroquoian Peoples of the Land of Rocks and Water, A.D. 1000-1650: A Study in Settlement Archaeology. Vol 1. William D. Finlayson (ed.). London Museum of Archaeology, London , Ontario, Canada.

1998. Experimental Pollen Studies in the Crawford Lake Region, pp., 91-94 (with C. Turton) in Iroquoian Peoples of the Land of Rocks and Water, A.D. 1000-1650: A Study in Settlement Archaeology. Vol 1. William D. Finlayson (ed.). London Museum of Archaeology, London , Ontario, Canada.

1998. Stable isotopes, Sr/Ca, and Mg/Ca in biogenic carbonates from Petaluma Marsh, northern California, USA. (with B. L. Ingram, P. De Deckker, A. R. Chivas, M. E. Conrad) Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 62 N19-20:3229-3237.

1998. A 5000-year record of agriculture and tropical forest clearance in the Tuxtlas, Veracruz, Mexico. (with M. Goman) Holocene, 8:83-89.

1998. Pre-mission invasion of Erodium cicutarium in California. (with S. Mensing) Journal of Biogeography, 24:757-762.

Recent grants:

CAL-DWR. Long-term Variability of Fresh Water Flow into the San Francisco Estuary using Paleoclimatic Methods. (co-PI with Lisa Wells) $30,000. 1994-1995.

USNFS. Grazing Impacts on Monache Meadow, Inyo National Forest (with Robert Dull). $10,000. 1994.

NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant (Eric Edlund). $10,000. July 1994-June 1995.

USGS/NEHRP. Geometry and Holocene Displacement of the Pittsburg Fault Analyses of Tectonic Landforms and Holocene Stratigraphy, (with Patrick Williams and James Wanket). $30,000. 1998-99.

USGS. Detailed Pollen Stratigraphy for Mira Vista Trench Site, (with Patrick Williams and James Wanket). $20,000. 1998-99.

DOE-Westgec Stratigraphic Evidence for Recent Changes in Salinity Regimes in the San Francisco Estuary (with Lynn Ingram) $280,000. 1997-1998.

Tetratek for USN Dating of Recent Marsh Sediments at Concord California by means of Pollen and 210 Pb (with David Wahl and Frankie Malamud Roam). $10,000. 1999.

Web Pages

Biogeography (Geography 148) Course Page

Aztec Place Name Glyphs and the Extent of the Aztec Empire according to R.H. Barlow

The Valley of Mexico in the middle of the 16th Century