Background
Mojca completed a Bachelor in Geology at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia in 2003 and a Master in Environmental Science at University of Nova Gorica in 2011. After completing her Bachelors she worked as a Nature Conservation Advisor in her home country Slovenia for almost 15 years. Her main responsibility was to coordinate planned and ongoing activities in natural protected areas - natural monuments, national parks and Natura 2000 – European ecological network areas. During this period she took a sabbatical year to volunteer in Cambodia.
Mojca is a passionate traveller with a curious spirit who finds it difficult to stay put for too long. The eagerness to experience something new and a huge interest in geoscience as well as Aboriginal Australian prehistory eventually brought her to Cairns. For her PhD project Mojca is investigating how landscape and environment in far north Queensland savannah inland were in the past. This research is part of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH) and is based on the Woolgar Valley Aboriginal Corporation country.
Research topic
Palaeoenviromental reconstruction of the area surrounding Gledswood Shelter 1, Far North Queensland
Research Outline
Palaeoenvironmental reconstruction refers to a research undertaken to determine what the landscape, climate and vegetation were like at a particular time and place in the past. This project objective is to reconstruct the past landscape and vegetation of the area surrounding the archaeological site of Gledswood Shelter 1 (GS1) in far north Queensland, using a combined approach. Combined records from sediment deposits inside archaeological rockshelters and from their surrounding area can provide a more coprehensive palaeoenvironmental information. Yet, combined studies of rockshelters and their surroundings are rare in Australia and worldwide. Rockshelters act like sediment traps, they are natural archives of sedimentary records, very similar to caves. However, the natural processes that impact the sedimentary record inside a rockshelter differ, sometimes significantly, from those that impact the sedimentary record of the deposits outside the rockshelter’s dripline. This project investigates how the sedimentary records from inside Gledswood Shelter 1 and its surroundings differ and complement each other in order to provide a better approach to the palaeoenvironmental reconstruction in Australia.
Supervisory Team
Distinguished Professor Michael Bird
Dr. Christian Reepmeyer
Dr. Lynley Wallis
Dr. Fiona Petchey