Recipient of the CPS sholarship 2011: Kristina Mehlqvist
Kristina is a PhD student at the Department of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences at the Lund University in Sweden working on Silurian spores dispersed from early land plants. The geographical area of investigation includes mainly the Silurian deposits of Scania, Sweden. At the 44th Annual Meeting of the AASP in Southampton, she presented a poster with the title "Oldest preserved cryptospore containing sporangia and mesofossils from the upper Silurian of Baltica (Gotland, Sweden)". She has carried out this study in collaboration with Jonas Hagström from the Natural History Museum in Stockholm.
The material is from Gotland (Ludlow age) and consists of sporangia from early land plants with in situ cryptospores, a land plant axis, spore masses and coprolites. The material contains the earliest land plant mesofossils found from Baltica and is very well preserved. Land plant material, especially from the earliest cryptospore-producing plants is very rare from this period.
Participation in the AASP meeting was very important for her since a lot of researchers within her area were attending and she got the chance to meet them and discuss herwork. It is very important to receive feedback from more experienced researchers in this particular field, but also general comments are crucial for the development of her research. She made many important contacts during this meeting. It was also very interesting to hear all the talks and see all the posters from different aspects of palynology. She thinks going to conferences and meetings is very worthwhile since it’s a good opportunity for networking, discussions and it’s also very inspiring.
The AASP meeting was a relatively small meeting with no parallel sessions which made it possible to hear all the talks and this was great. It was also fun to meet other students from different countries in the world. Overall, she had a great time in Southampton and is very grateful that to receive the funding from CPS to have the possibility to participate at this meeting. It has been a great experience and she have met a lot of new people and had many interesting discussions and also the opportunity to visit Great Britain.
Economy: The funding of 4500 SEK was used to cover travel costs from Höör to Southampton, accommodation 4 nights in Southampton and food expenses.
Kristina Mehlqvist, Lund
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