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Dr. Clare WilsonLecturer in Soil ScienceLecturer – University of Stirling (2007-present)
Room 4U10, Cottrell Building Biological & Environmental Sciences
tel: +44 1786 467817
I always welcome enquiries about projects and studentships |
Research Interests
My research centres around understanding processes and landscapes of soil change. My work has three main themes which span the school Ecological and environmental process and Geoarchaeology and environmental history research clusters.
Soil Carbon Dynamics - As a SAGES lecturer I am part of a Scotland wide pooling initiative researching terrestrial carbon dynamics, current and recent projects in this area include:
- Assessing spatial variability of carbon, iron and aluminium concentrations in gleyed soils as a means of understanding the stabilisation of soil organic carbon. NERC small grant in collaboration with University of Edinburgh.
- Soil organic cabon stabilisation processes in paddy soils. Carnegie grant for field sampling in Sri Lanka.
- Effect of soil structure on SOC distribution and lability. NERC funded PhD project in collaboration with Rothamstead Research Institute, and EU COST funded project in collaboration with Universities of Torino and Bologna.
Geoarchaeology - The application of soil science techniques, particularly soil micromorphology and soil geochemistry, to address archaeological questions of site formation processes and space use:
- InterArChive: Geochemical soil signatures of burials and burial practice. A collaborative ERC project with Don Brothwell, University of York.
- Development of SASSA (Soil Analysis Support System for Archaeologists). NERC knowledge transfer grant.
- Multi-element soil analysis to aid interpretation of space use on archaeological sites. NERC and Historic Scotland funded collaboration with University of York.
- Site formation processes at the Xeropolis-Lefkandi tell site, Greece. Collaboration with University of Oxford.
- Development of soil quality indicators for cultural heritage preservation. DEFRA funded as part of UK Soil Indicators Consortium.
- The Geoarchaeology of 16th and 17th Century Alum and Copperas industry around Poole Harbour. In collaboration with the Poole Habour Heritage Project.
Technique development -
- Microsoil workshops, 2009 and 2011 integrating biological, physical and chamical techniques for the study of soil micro-habitats.
- The integration of 2-D SEM-EDX maps of soil chemistry with 3-D micro-XCT models of soils physical structure. NERC funded project in collaboration with SIMBIOS, University of Abertay.
- The application of soil micromorphology and micro-analytical techniques to soil thin sections.
- Lead isotope ratios as tracers of anthropogenic inputs to archaeological soils. In collaboration with University of York and Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen.
Teaching
Current undergraduate teaching commitments include:
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The tell site of Xeropolis – Lefkandi, Greece. |
- 8 day field trip to Urra, SE Spain, ENV6T6
- 2 day field trip to Aviemore, Scotland, SCI3FC
- Agriculture in the 21st Century, half-module, ENV8AF
- Soil Quality and Protection Module, ENV5S5
- Field Skills - mapping, SCI2FS
- Field and Laboratory techniques - project groups, ENV5T5
- Environmental Science Review Essay, ENV7EE
- Dissertation students, ENV9PR
Current postgraduate teaching commitments include:
- MSc module, ENMP20, Assessing and managing soil quality.
- PhD student supervision - Jeff Collison, Krista Gilliland, Audrey Wayolle, Shehu Saleh, Laura McKenna
Administration duties
- Programme director for Environmental Science, and Env Sci joint degree programmes
- Admissions officer for Environmental Science and Environmental Geography
- Member of the Learning and Teaching Committee
- Module co-ordinator for ENV8AF, ENV7EE, and ENMP20
- Part of the management team for the thin section laboratory
External / commercial duties
- Council member of the British Society of Soil Science
- Geoarchaeology consultancy including site visits, laboratory assessments and analysis and soil micromorphology.
- SEM-EDX analysis, current projects include analysis of archaeological soils and artefacts and analysis of air pollution on Spanish oil rigs.
- Maintenance of SASSA website.
Recent Publications
Copies of many of these papers and/or preprints can be accessed through the Stirling University Online Repository, STORRE.
Peer Reviewed Papers
Falsone, G., Wilson, C.A., Bonifacio, E., Cloy, J.M. and Graham, M.C. (Submitted) Form and stability of soil organic matter: an integration of image analysis and SEM-EDS with abiotic oxidation on soil thin sections. European Journal of Soil Science.
Cloy, J.M., Wilson, C.A. and Graham, M.C. (Submitted) The role of Fe and Al oxides in the stabilisation of organic matter in gleyed soils under different hydrological regimes. Geoderma.
Hapka, S.M., Wang, Z.X., Otten, W., Wilson, C.A., Baveye, P. (2011) Automated statistical method to align 2D chemical maps with 3D X-ray micro-tomography images of soils. Geoderma. DOI: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2011.05.018.
Golding, K.A., Davidson, D.A. and Wilson, C.A. (2010) Antiquated rubbish: the use of urban waste as soil fertiliser in and near to historic Scottish Burghs. Antiquity, 38 (325), September 2010.
Davidson, D.A., Wilson, C.A., Lemos, I.S. and Theocharopoulos, S.D. (2010) Tell formation processes as indicated from geoarchaeological and geochemical investigations at Xeropolis, Euboea, Greece, Journal of Archaeological Science, 37, 7, 1564-1571. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2010.01.017
Cowie, J., Cairns, D., Blunn, M., Wilson C.A., Pollard, E., Davidson, D.A. (2009) Supporting geoarchaeologists in the field: a case study in decision support and knowledge management. International Journal of Information Management, 29, 397-406.
Wilson, C.A., Davidson, D.A. and Cresser, M.S. (2009) An evaluation of the site specificity of soil elemental signatures for identifying and interpreting former functional areas. Journal of Archaeological Science, 36, 2327-2334.
Wilson, C.A., Davidson, D.A., Cowie, J., Cairns, D. and Blunn, M. (2008) Soil Analysis Support System for Archaeologists: developing SASSA. Internet Archaeology, 25, http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue25/wilson_index.html.
Wilson, C. A., Davidson, D. A., and Cresser, M. S. (2008) Multi-element soil analysis: an assessment of its potential as an aid to archaeological interpretation. Journal of Archaeological Science, 35; 412-424.
Davidson, D. A., Wilson, C. A., Meharg, A., Stutter, C., Edwards, K. J. (2007) The legacy of past manuring practices on soil contamination in remote rural areas. Environment International, 33: 78-83.
Wilson, C. A., Davidson, D. A. and Cresser, M. S. (2007) Evaluating the use of multi-element soil analysis in archaeology: a study of a post-medieval croft (Olligarth) in Shetland. Atti della Società Toscana di Scienze Naturali, Memorie serie A, 112: 69-77.
Tipping, R., Tisdall, E., Davies, A., Wilson, C., and Yendell, S. (2007) Living with peat in the flow country: prehistoric farming communities and blanket peat spread at Oliclett, Caithness, northern Scotland. In Sheridan, A. (ed) Wetland Archaeology in the British Isles. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Monograph Series. Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Edinburgh. 157-164.
Wilson, C.A., Bacon, J.R., Cresser, M.S., and Davidson, D.A. (2006) Lead isotope ratios as a means of sourcing anthropogenic lead in archaeological soils: a pilot study of an abandoned Shetland croft. Archaeometry, 48: 501-509.
Wilson, C. A., Cresser, M. S., and Davidson, D. A. (2006) Sequential element extraction of soils from abandoned farms: an investigation of the partitioning of anthropogenic element inputs from historic land use. Journal of Environmental Monitoring, 8: 439-444.
Wilson, C. A., Davidson, D. A., and Cresser, M. S. (2005) An evaluation of multi-element analysis of soil contamination to differentiate space use and former function in and around abandoned farms. The Holocene, 15, 1094-1099.
Davidson, D. A. , Bruneau, P. M. C., Grieve, I. C., and Wilson, C. A. (2004) Micromorphological assessment of the effect of liming on faunal excrement in an upland grassland soil. Applied Soil Ecology, 26, 169-177.
Wilson, C. A., Simpson, I. A., and Currie E. (2002) Soil management in pre-Hispanic raised field systems: Micromorphological evidence from Hacienda Zuleta, Ecuador. Geoarchaeology, 17, 261-283.
Conference Proceedings
Golding, K.A., Davidson, D.A., Wilson, C.A. (2010) Micromorphological evidence for the use of urban waste as a soil fertiliser in and near to historic Scottish towns. In: Gilkes RJ, Prakongkep N, editors. Proceedings of the 19th World Congress of Soil Science; Soil Solutions for a Changing World; ISBN 978-0-646-53783-2; Published on DVD; http://www.iuss.org; Symposium 4.5.1 Soil science: history, philosophy and sociology; 2010 Aug 1-6. Brisbane, Australia: IUSS; 2010, pp.12-15. PDF
Otten, W., Grinev, D., Baveye, P., Wang, Z., Hapca, S., Wilson, C. (2010) Integrating physical and chemical techniques to characterise soil microsites. In: Gilkes RJ, Prakongkep N, editors. Proceedings of the 19th World Congress of Soil Science; Soil Solutions for a Changing World; ISBN 978-0-646-53783-2; Published on DVD; http://www.iuss.org; Working Group 1.2 Architecture of soil structural diversity; 2010 Aug 1-6. Brisbane, Australia: IUSS; 2010, pp.60-63. PDF
Wilson C.A, Cloy, J.C, Graham, M. (2010) Mapping micro-spatial patterns of C, and Fe and Al-oxides in gleysols: A means of understanding SOM-mineral interactions. In: Gilkes RJ, Prakongkep N, editors. Proceedings of the 19th World Congress of Soil Science; Soil Solutions for a Changing World; ISBN 978-0-646-53783-2; Published on DVD; http://www.iuss.org; Symposium 2.2.2 Dynamics of organic materials in soils; 2010 Aug 1-6. Brisbane, Australia: IUSS; 2010, pp.150-152. PDF
Wilson C.A, Davidson, D.A., Cairns, D., Cowie, J, Blunn, M. (2010) SASSA: an open source, Wiki soil based knowledge and decision support tool for
archaeologists. In: Gilkes RJ, Prakongkep N, editors. Proceedings of the 19th World Congress of Soil Science; Soil Solutions for a Changing World; ISBN 978-0-646-53783-2; Published on DVD; http://www.iuss.org; Symposium 4.4.1
Delivering soils information to non-agriculture users; 2010 Aug 1-6. Brisbane, Australia: IUSS; 2010, pp. 19-22. PDF
Otten, W., Grinev, D. and Wilson, C. (2009) Visualizing chemical phases in 3-D heterogeneous soil environments: combining X-ray microtomography with SEM-EDX. Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 11, EGU General Assembly, EGU2009-3060.
Cowie, J., Cairns, D., Blunn, M., Wilson, C.A., and Davidson, D. A., (2007) Mobile decision making and knowledge management: supporting geoarchaeologists in the field. ICEIS 2007: Proceedings of the ninth international conference on enterprise information systems – artificial intelligence and decision support systems: 57-62.
Wilson, C.A., Cresser, M. S., and Davidson, D. A. (2006) Testing the use of soil contamination data in environmental archaeology. Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology, January 2005, New Orleans.
Wilson, C.A., Davidson, D. A., and Cresser, M. S. (2006) Evaluating the use of multi-element soil analysis as an aid to archaeological interpretation. In (eds. R.E. Jones and L. Sharpe) Going over old ground. British Archaeological Reports, British Series, 416, 143-147.
Book Chapters and other Contributions
Cresser, M.S. and Wilson, C.A. (in press) Abuse of soils as pollutant sinks. In, (Eds, M. Cresser,L. Batty, C. Adams, A. Boxall) An Integrated Introduction to Environmental Science. Pearson Education.
Adderley, W.P., Wilson, C.A., Simpson, I.A. and Davidson, D.A. (2010) Athropogenic features. In, (eds. G. Stoops, V. Marcelino and F. Mees) Interpretation of Micromorphological Features of Soils and Regoliths. Elsevier.
Wilson, C.A., Davidson, D.A., Cairns, D.A., Cowie, J., Blunn, M., and Pollard, E.J. (2007) SASSA: Soil analysis Support System for Archaeologists’. [internet] www.sassa.org.uk.
Entwistle, J. and Wilson, C.A. (2007) A comparison of XRF and nitric-extraction/ICP-AES for differentiating & interpreting soils from an abandoned rural township in Perthshire, Scotland. Society of Archaeological Science Newsletter, 30(3), 10-12.
Wilson C.A. (2006) Book Review of Branch N., Canti, M., Clark, P. and Turney, C., 2005, Environmental Archaeology: theoretical and practical approaches. London, Hodder Arnold Press. Society of Archaeological Science Newsletter. 29 (3)
Wilson C.A (2006) Book Review of Goldberg, P. and Macphail, R.I., 2006, Practical and theoretical archaeology. Oxford, Blackwell Publishing. European Journal of Soil Science, 57: p. 926.
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The field site at Olligarth, Papa Stour, Shetland. |
Zinc concentrations associated with fish bone in historic agricultural soils |
