Project description:
An inter-regional (Central Europe, Iberian Peninsula, New England, and Central Alaska) comparison of lacustrine sediment archives of Late-glacial age is a crucial approach to disentangle local and global characteristics of abrupt environmental changes that occurred 12,900 years ago. This period is marked by a rapid climate cooling over much of the Northern Hemisphere. This cooling initiated an 1100-year-long cold period in Earth's history known as the Younger Dryas.
This inter-disciplinary project aims to improve our understanding of the dynamics of global environmental changes at the onset of the Younger Dryas across the North Atlantic region. It also seeks to strengthen the current scientific collaboration between the Czech (Charles University, Biology Centre of the CAS) and the US teams (University of Maine, University of Alaska, Fairbanks), while enabling the exchange of state-of the-art methods and research approaches.
Lead partners:
Principal investigator: Dr Daniel Vondrák, Institute for Environmental Studies, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague
Co-investigator: Prof. Evžen Stuchlík (2025) & Prof. Jiří Kopáček (2026–2028), Institute of Hydrobiology, Biology Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences, České Budějovice
Co-operating US partners: Dr Nancy Bigelow (University of Alaska, Fairbanks), Prof. Stephen A. Norton and Assoc. Prof. Andrei V. Kurbatov (University of Maine, Orono), Prof. Thomas V. Lowell (University of Maine, Orono and University of Cincinnati)
NEWS
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January 23, 2026
We have completed the financial report for the year 2025.
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January 15, 2026
Prof. Jiří Kopáček was appointed by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic as the new co-PI for our project.
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November 12, 2025
Verena Meier received the award for best student oral presentation at the Air Quality in Time conference (Hustopeče, Czechia; presentation title: When ashes become aerosols: (crypto)tephra as a tracer of volcanic fallout and long-range transport).
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November 12, 2025
Our team is mourning the loss of our colleague and friend Prof. Evžen Stuchlík. Evžen was a valued team member and will be missed greatly.

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June 18, 2025
This website became public.
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June 17, 2025
The trial version of the CENA project website launched.
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May 26 – June 7, 2025
Field work was carried out in Acadia National Park, Maine, USA. We successfully retrieved lake sediment cores from Sargent Mountain Pond and Bubble Pond.
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March 1, 2025
The new project of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (no. LUAUS25082) has just started.