Uurimisrühma peamiste uurimissuundade hulka kuuluvad:• Pärastjääaegse kliima rekonstrueerimine eri analüüsimeetoditega; • Maakatte ja taimestiku rekonstrueerimine, kiired muutused; • Õietolmuandmete-põhised ökoloogilised seosed ja paleo-elurikkus; • Mineviku maakasutus ning ökosüsteemide kohanemine sellega; • Jäätaande kronoloogia ja paleogeograafia; • Läänemere areng ning keskkonnaseisundi muutused, merelised maavarad.
The main research aim of the Quaternary groupis reconstruction of past ecosystems, vegetationhistory, climate and environmental change, bothnatural and manmade, at high temporal resolutionduring the last 15,000 years through multidisciplinary and multiproxy studies of natural archivessuch as lake, bog and marine sediments. The groupfocuses on better understanding the interactionsbetween Quaternary geo- and biosphere processes,in particular, addressing the following: Paleoclimate variation using multi-proxyanalyses (such as pollen and chironomidbased inference models) Paleo-biodiversity (terrestrial and aquatic), functional and phylogenetic diversitydynamics and relationships with climateand environmental changes Past human impact upon landscapes,waterbodies, vegetation structure andland-cover Postglacial retreat of the ice sheet Shoreline displacement of the Baltic SeaThe group holds a leading position in Quaternaryand palaeoecological studies in the Baltic realm.The main strengths of the group’s work are related to the high-resolution paleo-datasets of thegeographically and climatically constrained area.The group hosts several labs of biostratigraphy,dating, geochemistry, granulometry, and takesuse of the mass spectrometry lab for stable isotope geochemistry.