Per Möller

Per Möller

Professor emeritus, Professor Emeritus

Personal profile

Teaching

As a glacial/Quaternary geologist I have tought courses in glacial sedimentology and geomorphology, as well as glacial history and applied aspects of quaternary geology as hydrogeology, engineering geology and resource- and environmental geology. In 2017, in spite of my retirement, it was 'business as usual'. My replacement, Sven Lukas, is now in place since May 2018, and will take over my teaching.

Research

Since 1st of January 2017 I am officially retired, so I suppose the correct title should be Professor Emeritus. However, not much has changed with regards to research. I am still very active within two of our research groups within Quaternary Sciences at the Department of Geology:(1) Glacial Processes, Sediments and Landforms and, (2) Reconstruction of Quaternary environments in Polar and mid-latitude regions - palaeoglaciology and climate history. Polar research has been close to my heart; since 1989 I have made extensive field work in polar/subpolar areas of both hemispheres (about 20 expeditions) on Greenland, Svalbard, Siberia in arctic Russia in the north and on Antarctica and Tierra del Fuego in the south.

Much of presently ongoing research centers around (i) the formation of drumlins in southern Sweden (and in general the formation of the glacial landscape), (ii) glacial history and palaeo-environmental change in southern Scandinavia for a period before the Last Glacial Maximum (70-30,000 years ago, Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3), (iii) glacial/postglacial palaeoenvironmental development in the Siljan area (Dalarna) in southcentral Sweden and (iv) palaeoenvironmental reconstruction in connection with Mesolithic (stone age) camp sites in northernmost Sweden (Norrbotten).  

In January 2019 I got a new 3-year SGU-funded project (together with Helena Alexanderson) entitled: "Sub-till sediments and deflation surfaces in southern Sweden (https://www.sgu.se/om-sgu/nyheter/2019/januari/lldelning-av-externa-forskningsbidrag-2019/)

 

News and activities:

rskning har under senaste åren och för kommande år centrerats kring (i) bildningen av drumliner i södra Sverige (och helt allmänt det glaciala landskapets bildning), (ii) glacial utvecklings- och miljöhistoria i syd-Skandinavien under perioden före det senaste istidsmaximat (perioden 70-30,000 år sedan, syreisotopstadium (MIS) 3), (iii) landskapets utveckling från glaciation och in i nutid i Siljansområdet, Dalarna, och (iv) paleomiljöutvecklingen kring en Mesolitisk (stenålder) boplats in nordligaste Sverige (Norrbotten). 

I januari 2019 fick jag ett nytt 3-årigs forskningsanslag från Sveriges Geologiska Undersökning (SGU) (tillsammans med Helena Alexanderson) för projektet "Sub-till sediments and deflation surfaces in southern Sweden" (https://www.sgu.se/om-sgu/nyheter/2019/januari/lldelning-av-externa-forskningsbidrag-2019/)

 
Nyheter och aktiviteter:

Augusti 2024: field work (4 days) with archaeologists with recognaisance digging in a Bronz Age mound in Halland (Hagbards Gelge).

Juli 2024: field work in Småland (6 days) i the Vimmerby area as a continuation of my SGU project  ”sub-till sediments and wind deflation surfaces in southern Sweden”. 

August 2023: Field work (6 days) in Dalarna within my project  'The Siljan Lake District - Quaternary geology from deglaciation and into present time'. This time coring lake sediment successions in Lake Siljan with aim to constrict processes and timing of lage subaqueous slumps detected from previous multi beam scanning of the lake floor.

July 2023: Field work (2 weeks) sampling bedrock surfaces at 50 km increments for determining time for total exposure to the atmosphere, using cosmic nuclides (in situ 14C), done along a 1000 km south to north profile across Sweden; 2nd leg, terminated in Arvidsjaur

October 2022: Field work (1 week) sampling bedrock surfaces at 50 km increments for determining time for total exposure to the atmosphere, using cosmic nuclides (in situ 14C), done along a 1000 km south to north profile across Sweden; first leg (to be continued)

February-March 2022: Winter field work (6 days) in Dalarna within my project  'The Siljan Lake District - Quaternary geology from deglaciation and into present time'. This time coring lake sediment successions in Lake Orsasjön with aim to constrict processes and timing of lage subaqueous slumps detected from previous multi beam scanning of the lake floor.

December 2021: Submitting first paper from the project 'The Siljan Lake District - Quaternary geology from deglaciation and into present time' to Earth Surface Processes and Landforms: "Deglaciation history and subsequent lake dynamics in the Siljan region, south-central Sweden, based on new LiDAR evidence and sediment records."

November 2021: Our Nature paper dealing with vegetation and megafauna change over the last 50 000 years around the Arctic came out: "Late Quaternary Dynamics of Arctic Biota from Ancient Environmental Genomics. Nature 600, 86-92."

October 2021: short field work in Siljan area, new effort to get a good sediment record for the isolation of the Siljan basin from the Ancylus Lake,

June 2021: Short field work for extraction of a lake sediment core showing the isolation of the Siljan Basin from the Ancylus Lake; project 'the Siljan Lake District - Quaternary geology from deglaciation and into present time'

April 2021: Field work with lake sediment coring in small basin around the Mesolithic camp site at Sammakko in northernmost Sweden, aiming at paleoenvironmental reconstruction for the first millennium after deglaciation.

June - September 2020: Field work on my project 'sub-till sediment and wind deflation surfaces in southern Sweden' (SGU funded) for nine weeks (!) with continued reconnaissance and investigation of machine-dug trenches.

August 2020: Reconnaissance for later lake sediment corings around a new-found Stone Age camp site (Mesolithic, c. 9000 years back) at Sammakko, northernmost Sweden. Cooperation with Norrbotten Museum.

July 2020: Continued field work on project 'The Siljan Lake District - Quaternary geology from deglaciation and into present time'. Lake bottom topography mapping of Lake Siljan for one week by means of multi-beam scanning and sub bottom profiling from Martin Jacobson’s (SU) vessel 'Skibladir'.

March 2020: winter field work in Dalarna coring lake sediment successions with aim to reconstruct relative shore displacement for the Lake Siljan basin, from the highest shoreline just after the last deglaciation, and into present time

September - October 2019: Field work (5 weeks) in southern Sweden for the SGU-funded project ”sub-till sediments and deflation surfaces in southern Sweden”. Reconnaissance of c. 70 gravel quarries for evaluation of best sites to be trenched for sedimentological investigations next year.

August 2019: Field work for my Siljan Lake district project ‘Quaternary geology from deglaciation into present time’. Peat bog coring in the Leksand area for searching evidence for an Early Holocene lake drainage event for Lake Siljan.

August 2019: Field investigation of possible grave mounds (Bronze Age?) at Selholmen close to Älvsbyn in Norrbotten (northernmost Sweden). Co-operation with Norrbotten Museum.

April 2019: Presentation of the new 3-year SGU-funded project "Sub-till sediments and deflation surfaces in southern Sweden" in Uppsala, at SGU's 'Research and Innovation Day', the 11th of April, with lecture and poster.

March 2019: Field work on Lake Orsasjön in Dalarna, coring lake sediments for my Siljan Lake district project ‘Quaternary geology from deglaciation into present time’.

January 2019:  I received a new SGU-funded SGU project together with Helena Alexanderson; "Sub-till sediments and deflation surfaces in southern Sweden (https://www.sgu.se/om-sgu/nyheter/2019/januari/lldelning-av-externa-forskningsbidrag-2019/). This will mean extensive field work in south Sweden during 2019 and 2020.

October, 2018: Lecturing for a week at UNIS in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, on Siberian glaciation history on the course ‘Arctic glacial and climate history’.

August, 2018: Started preliminary investigations in the Siljan area for an upcoming project: ‘Quaternary geology from deglaciation into present time’. The project aims at understanding the last deglaciation in the area and relations with the Baltic Sea-basin waters for the highest coastline development (the Ancylus Lake), as well as how the Siljan basins became isolated during isostatic uplift and the following lake development. In August, I started up with morphological ground control of LiDAR mapping, as well as mapping of the bottom topography of Lake Orsasjön with so-called 'multi-beam' mapping, and the distribution of lake sediment sequences with 'sub-bottom profiling'. A project application for future drilling programs has been submitted.

June, 2018: A special issue of GFF is devoted to drumlins: ”Drumlin formation: a mystery or not". This is the output (in 7 papers) from the conference held in May 2017 at our department as an honor to me on the occasion of my retirement 1st of January, 2017. You find the GFF issue here: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/sgff20/140/2?nav=tocList

June, 2018: MicroWine 2-day conference in Bordeaux, France. MicroWine is an EU/Marie Currie network project, with 15 PhD students supposed to be ready with their theses during winter 2018/2019. Our student Rui Santini, supervised by Kurt Kjaer and me, held a presentation of our vineyard studies in Australia, Spain and Denmark.

April, 2018: Last 'Past Gateways' meeting hosted by the University of Durham, England, for 5 days in beautiful spring weather. Three days of talks on Arctic glacial geology (mine was about the Taimyr Peninsula in Siberia), and one day excursion over beautiful drumlin fields around the Pennins.

January, 2018: Nordic Geologic Winter Meeting, Copenhagen, Denmark. A 3-day gathering of primarily Nordic geologists.

December, 2017: AGU meeting in New Orleans, USA. Gathering some 21 000 geologist.

August, 2017: Field work at Sjaelland Odde, Denmark. Coring sediment sequences in the Örnberg vineyards for the MICROWINE project.

May 2017: A mini-symposium and excursion with the theme "The Beauty of Drumlins and the Mystery of their Genesis" that was hold at the Department of Geology in "the honor of the retirement" of Per Möller. Colleagues came from Canada, USA, Britain, Norway, Denmark and Sweden to hold inspiring talks on the subject of above, and we had a nice excursion to Småland in fantastic spring weather.

April 2017: Presentation of results from my SGU-funded project 'A glacial-geologic enigma: ice streams over south Scandinavia and no ice in the north. Is this a possible scenario?' at the yearly FoU seminar at SGU in Uppsala.

September 2016. Field work in Ribera del Duero, Spain. Coring sediment sequences in the Dominio de Pingus vineyards for the MICROWINE project.

August 2016: Drilling of 25-50 m deep sediment sequences in Småland (age span 50,000-25,000 years ago), SGU-funded 3-year grant.

May 2016: GFF 'best article award 2015' for Möller & Dowling, 2015: The importance of thermal boundary transitions on glacial geomorphology; mapping of ribbed/hummocky moraine and streamlined terrain from LiDAR, over Småland, South Sweden. GFF 137, 252–283. (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/11035897.2016.1183412)

April 2016: Presentation at the EGU general assembly, Vienna, with a talk on "On the issue of equifinallity in glacial geomorphology".

March 2016: Field work in Margaret River Valley, West Australia. Coring sediment sequences in the Vasse Felix Estate for the MICROWINE project.

February 2016: A sort of termination of our drumlin project for south Sweden with the dissertation of Tom Dowling with a thesis consisting of 6 drumlin-related papers. (https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/publication/402a85a7-7827-43ed-85f6-36a88b2022de)

November 2015: Two-weeks drilling with the LTH-hosted VR-funded 'Infrastructure Drill Rig' into 100 m deep Alnarp sediment in south Skåne - with very poor results due to technical problems. SGU-funded 3-year grant.

March 2014: Field work in Tierra del Fuego, southern tip of South America. Coring lake basins along the Beagle Channel for shore-line reconstructions.

July - August, 2012: Expedition to the Taimyr Peninsula, Arctic Siberia. Expedition blog can be seen on: http://www.geol.lu.se/personal/prm/Blogg_Taymyr_2012.htm.

July - August, 2010: Expedition to the Taimyr Peninsula, Arctic Siberia. Expedition blog can be seen on: http://www.geol.lu.se/personal/prm/Blogg_Taymyr_2010.htm.

 

 

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 13 - Climate Action
  • SDG 14 - Life Below Water
  • SDG 15 - Life on Land

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Natural Sciences
  • Earth and Related Environmental Sciences
  • Geology

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