Dr Emma Hocking

My research focuses on reconstructing past relative sea level and environmental change on Holocene timescales, with a growing interest in high-latitude carbon cycling and its response to climate change. I work across a variety of environments — including lakes, tidal marshes, isolation basins and peatlands — using a combination of sedimentology, microfossil (particularly diatom), microbial molecular and geochronological methods.

A current focus is understanding carbon cycling in boreal and Arctic lakes, developing approaches that link past and present carbon dynamics to ultimately improve projections of future greenhouse gas emissions from high-latitude lakes. I also continue to work on a range of palaeolimnological and palaeoenvironmental projects across the world, including reconstruction of great earthquake and tsunami history in south-central Chile, reconstructing lake mixing regimes in Finland, and reconstructing past human impacts on neotropical landscapes including the Brazilian savannah and Amazonia. Across all of these projects, diatom analysis is a central methodological tool.

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• It’s In Our Hands: Facilitating agency, personal connections and collective cohesion in climate education through board game play, Padwick, A., Hocking, E., Shimwell, J., Davenport, C., Bourne, J., Ransome, K., Baxter, C., Ramsay, A., Blazey, E. 1 Jun 2026, In: Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences
• Millennial-scale fire and climate dynamics in the world’s largest tropical wetland show emerging fire threat to flooded ecosystems  , Whitney, B., Neves, D., Loughlin, N., D'Apolito, C., Tavares Carla, C., Hocking, E., Mayle, F., Power, M., Silva, A., Assine, M. 1 Apr 2026, In: Global and Planetary Change
• Environmental response of coastal lake Huelde, Chile, after tsunami inundation and earthquake-induced subsidence, Hocking, E., Kempf, P., Pleskot, K., Suchora, M., Kołaczek, P., Niederstätter, M., Moernaut, J. 1 Oct 2025, In: Quaternary Science Reviews
• Global vegetation zonation and terrestrial climate of the warm Early Eocene, Thompson, N., Salzmann, U., Hutchinson, D., Strother, S., Pound, M., Utescher, T., Brugger, J., Hickler, T., Hocking, E., Lunt, D. 1 Feb 2025, In: Earth-Science Reviews
• Mangrove dynamics and resilience in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, across the Holocene, Holmes, R., Salzmann, U., Djamaluddin, R., Hocking, E., Williams, M., Berrio, J., Siregar, I., Tjoa, B., Fusi, M., Diele, K. Feb 2025, In: Ecological Indicators
• Diatoms in earthquake and tsunami reconstruction along the Chilean subduction zone: valuable proxies of a paleoseismologist’s toolkit, Hocking, E., Garrett, E., Dura, T. 1 May 2024, In: Past Global Changes Magazine
• Microfossil and geochemical evidence for the Storegga tsunami at Budle Bay, Northumberland, Pickering, L., Summers, G., Hocking, E., Garrett, E., Simms, A. 12 Aug 2024, In: Sedimentologika
• Temperate to tropical palaeoclimates on the northwest margin of Europe during the middle Cenozoic, McCoy, J., Gibson, M., Hocking, E., O'Keefe, J., Riding, J., Roberts, R., Campbell, S., Abbott, G., Pound, M. 26 Aug 2024, In: Palaeontologia Electronica
• Biostratigraphy and Paleoenvironments of the Pirabas Formation (Neogene, Pará State-Brazil), Gomes, B., Aguilera, O., da Silva-Caminha, S., D'Apolito, C., Cárdenas, D., Hocking, E., Lemes, K. 1 Apr 2023, In: Marine Micropaleontology
• Holocene deglaciation and glacier readvances on the Fildes Peninsula and King George Island (Isla 25 de Mayo), South Shetland Islands, NW Antarctic Peninsula, Heredia Barión, P., Roberts, S., Spiegel, C., Binnie, S., Wacker, L., Davies, J., Gabriel, I., Jones, V., Blockley, S., Pearson, E., Foster, L., Davies, S., Roland, T., Hocking, E., Bentley, M., Hodgson, D., Hayward, C., McCulloch, R., Strelin, J., Kuhn, G. 1 Jun 2023, In: The Holocene

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• Shifted Ecological Baselines in the Brazillianb Savannah (SEBBS), Whitney, B. (Principal Investigator), Hocking, E. (Co Investigator), Natural Environment Research Council, 01/09/19 - 31/01/21, £91,901.00

• Leeza Pickering Alteration of lake mixing regimes in southern Finland in response to climate change: reconstructing Holocene lake mixing regimes and modelling 21st century changes Start Date: 01/10/2021 End Date: 17/10/2025
• Leeza Pickering Alteration of lake mixing regimes in southern Finland in response to climate change: reconstructing Holocene lake mixing regimes and modelling 21st century changes Start Date: 01/10/2021 End Date: 17/07/2026

• Geography PhD June 30 2010
• Geography Studies (Science) MSc August 31 2006
• Geography BSc (Hons) June 30 2005
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy FHEA

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• Cold and Palaeoenvironments Research Group
• Google Scholar profile