Dr Matt Telfer
- Visiting Research Associate
- Member of the Landscape Dynamics research cluster
- Email: matt.telfer@ouce.ox.ac.uk
Academic Profile
Dr Telfer moved to Oxford in 2004 as a visiting student, and tutored on second and third year Quaternary courses. In 2005 he began work as Technician to the Oxford Luminescence research group and also began acting as secretary for IGCP500 - Dryland Change: Past, Present and Future. He was appointed College Lecturer at St Catherine's College, Oxford, in 2006, and Research Associate to the Oxford Luminescence Dating (OLD) laboratory in 2008. He is currently a Visiting Research Associate of the School of Geography and the Environment.
Dr Telfer completed his PhD entitled "Late Quaternary aeolian activity and palaeoenvironments of the southwestern Kalahari: Advances from an intensive chronometric investigation at Witpan, South Africa" at the University of Sheffield in 2007. While at Sheffield he also worked as a Research Assistant developing the CHANGES project, provided technical services for the Sheffield Centre for International Dryland Research (SCIDR), and tutored first- and second-year undergraduate courses.
From 1997 to 2000, he worked as a technician to the Palaeoecology Laboratory at the University of Southampton, working on British Holocene palaeoclimatic records, primarily through palynology. Other work at Southampton included logistical and field support to glaciology expeditions, including hot-water drilling and GPR.
He completed an Honours degree in Geography and Geology at the University of Bristol in 1996.
Current Research
His research interests concern Quaternary paleoenvironments and palaeoclimatology, especially of southern Africa; arid zone geomorphology and landscape dynamics; geochronology, particularly OSL and its development and application in novel settings.
Selected Publications
- Telfer, M.W., Bailey, R.M., Burrough, S., Stone, A.E.S, Thomas, D.S.G. and Wiggs, G.S.F. (in press, 2010) Understanding linear dune chronologies: Insights from a simple accumulation model. Geomorphology.
- Cofaigh, C., Telfer, M.W., Bailey, R.M. and Evans, D. (in press, 2010) Late Pleistocene chronostratigraphy and ice sheet limits, southern Ireland. Quaternary Science Reviews.
- Telfer, M.W. (2009) Understanding linear dune development: A detailed dating study of a linear dune encroaching on a pan surface. Quaternary Newsletter, 119: 47-49.
- Telfer, M.W., Wilson, P., Lord, T.C. and Vincent, P.J. (2009) New constraints on the age of the last ice sheet glaciation in NW England using optically stimulated luminescence dating. Journal of Quaternary Science, 24(8), 906-915.
- Brncic, T.M., Willis, K.J., Harris, D.J., Telfer, M.W. and Bailey, R.M. (2009) Fire and climate change impacts on lowland forest composition in northern Congo during the last 2580 years from palaeoecological analyses of a seasonally flooded swamp. The Holocene, 19(1): 79-89.
- Telfer, M.W., Thomas, D.S.G., Parker, A.G., Walkington, H. and Finch, A.A. (2008) Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating and palaeoenvironmental studies of pan (playa) sediment from Witpan, South Africa. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 273 (1-2): 50-60.
- Holmes, P.J., Bateman, M.D., Thomas, D.S.G., Telfer, M.W., Barker, C.H. and Lawson, M.P. (2008) A Holocene-late Pleistocene aeolian record from lunette dunes of the western Free State panfield, South Africa. The Holocene, 18(8): 1193-1205.
- Fitzsimmons, K.E., and Telfer, M.W. (2008) Complexities in the preservation and interpretation of Late Quaternary dune records: Examples from the Tirari Desert, Australia and the southwestern Kalahari, South Africa. Chungara, 40: 295-308.
- Wilson, P., Vincent, P.J., Telfer, M.W. and Lord, T.C. (2008) Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of loessic sediments and cemented scree in northwest England. The Holocene, 18: 1101-1112.
- Telfer, M.W., Bateman, M.D., Chase, B. and Carr, A.S. (2008) Testing the applicability of a large Standardized Growth Curve (SGC) data set: Kalahari dunes, South African coastal dunes and Florida dune cordons. Quaternary Geochronology, 3(1-2): 137-142.
- Telfer, M.W. and Thomas, D.S.G. (2007) Late Quaternary linear dune development of the southwestern Kalahari: Implications for aeolian palaeoclimatic reconstructions. Quaternary Science Reviews, 26(19-21): 2617-2630.
- Telfer, M.W. and Thomas, D.S.G. (2006) Complex Holocene lunette dune development, South Africa: Implications for paleoclimate and models of pan development in arid regions. Geology, 34(10): 853-856.