Summary
PICTURE a volcanic crater on Easter Island, a flyspeck of land out in the Pacific Ocean. Steep-sided, rocky, the crater's walls fall precipitately towards a swampy lake 200m below, which is 25m deep in places. Huge mats of rushes and water weeds clot the surface, where windowpanes of water reflect blue sky.
A cluster of New Zealand and Japanese geographers are ferrying gear down the crater slope. Once over the lip, the wind sweeping across the treeless island is blocked and the temperature pops up to a generous 25deg. They're moving with care down the inner crater wall, because a single misstep will see both geographer and gear land in the lake with a sticky, stinky splash.See the full content of this document
Extract
A Slice of Time
The team is preparing to take core samples from layers of sediment at the bottom of the lake. Properly taken and analysed, pollen grains in the samples will give clues to what climate was like on Easter Island centuries ago.
This matters, says Massey University Professor of Geography John Flenley. If we know what ha...See the full content of this document
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