Anthropology alumna Carla Hadden (PhD ’15) has served as the director of the University of Georgia Center for Applied Isotope Analysis since 2021. She began her career at the center as a graduate student and continues to support the mission of the center and the university in her role to this day. In collaboration with fellow anthropology alumna Katherine Napora (PhD ’21), Hadden, in a follow-up to the paleoclimate study, studies and dates the subfossil bald cypress trees found in the Altamaha River near Darien, Ga. With their complementary research, Hadden and Napora have uncovered clues about the history of climate and the ancient environment. Their research also analyzes how the trees record Miyake events — the observed sharp increase in the production of radiocarbon caused by high-energy cosmic events. These Miyake events are recorded in tree rings and can serve as a time stamp on the radiocarbon record, offering the scientists an opportunity to identify and measure small regional offsets from the global average. Though the team is still looking into this phenomenon, findings suggest an offset from an Altamaha tree indicates the radiocarbon chronologies in the affected region might be slightly and systematically off by a few years. Hadden presented her findings at a conference earlier this year, and subsamples are being sent to other labs around the world to independently replicate the results. Read more on original findings Review the abstract here Review the conference poster here
