SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK

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Unit of Palegeophysics and Geodynamics, at Stockholm University:

The unit was closed down in April 2005 after Prof. Nils-Axel Mörner’s retirement

Address: Enheten för paleogeofysik och geodynamik, (Kräftriket 24, Stockholms universitet)
Web page: http://www.pog.nu

Contact person: Professor Emeritus Nils-Axel Mörner, phone: +46 (0)431 363403, +46 (0)8 7171867

The Palegeophysics and Geodynamics unit at Stockholm University was basically a research unit, with a few subjects of special attention: • Sea Level, • Uplift of Fennoscandia, • Climate, • Paleoseismiy & Neotectonics, • Paleomagnetism, and • Geophilosophy. After the closing-down of the unit at Stockholm University Prof- Emeritus Nils-Axel Mörner has opened an independent research institution on Palegeophysics and Geodynamics, in Torekov in South Sweden.

Ongoing research connected to South Asia

During the period 1999–2003 Prof. Nils-Axel Mörner was president for the INQUA (The International Association of Quaternary Research) Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution, with a sub-commission (nr 3) devoted to the Indian Ocean. In the Spring 2000 edition of Integrated Coastal Zone Management he published an article on the Indian Ocean and its special sea level problems. That became the starting point for a research programme in the Maldives, which gave some spectacular finds. Information on the Maldives project, and the participating researchers is found on http://www.pog.nu/02projects/1_maldives.htm.
The key South Asia researchers in the sub-commission are Shahidul Islam, from the Department of Geography, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh; J. Katupotha, from the Department of Geography, University of Sri Jayawardenepura, Sri Lanka; and V J Loveson, Central Mining Research Institute, Dhanbad, India.
Prof Mörner intends to broaden these studies geographically, and include not only the Maldives, but also Sri Lanka, South India, Bangladesh, the Andaman Islands and maybe Thailand, and also involve scientists from many different disciplines from Geology, Geophysics, Biology and Ecology to Archeology, Osteology, DNA Genetics, History, Linguistics, and History of Technology and Trade. In June 2004 an article written by Mörner on ”The Maldives Project: a future free from sea-level flooding” was published in the prestigeous magazine Contemporary South Asia.
In 2008, Mörner published a paper in Journal of Coastal Research (together with his colleagues Jacques Laborel and Sue Dawson) on multiple tsunami events in the Maldives as detected by submarine ”sandstormes” (a novel technique) together with coastal records and historical documentation. In late 2008, Prof. Mörner was awarded an award in Portugal, the so-called ”Golden Condrite of Merit” (consisting of a fragment of the 1998 meteor affixed to a silver plaque, for his ”contribution to our understanding of sea-level change”. The Maldives Sea Level Project continues.

At the Development studies research conference held at Lund University in January 2003 Nils-Axel Mörner presented his new research project on ”Freed from condemnation to become flooded”. Read abstract!
In August 2004 Mörner was awarded a SASNET planning grant for an educational projct called “Research and Education in the Maldives regarding sea level changes, island evolution and reef ecology.” More information.

• In November 2007, papers presented by Prof. Nils-Axel Mörner and colleagues at the 18th European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies (ECMSAS), organised by SASNET in Lund in 2004, were published in the journal Internationales Asienforum (International Quarterly for Asian Studies, Vol. 38, Issue 3-4). A section of the journal was devoted to the theme ”Environment and Ecology in South Asia: Past and Present”, with Michael Mann, Fern Universität in Hagen, Germany, being the guest editor. Michael Mann and Nils-Axel Mörner, Professor Emeritus in Palegeophysics and Geodynamics from Stockholm University, were co-convening a panel at the Lund conference titled ”The stress on culture and ecology by past and present changes in environment” (more information about the panel).
Four papers from the panel are now published, Prof. Mörner’s ”Sea Level Changes and Tsunamis, Environmental Stress and Migration Overseas. The Case of the Maldives and Sri Lanka” – read the full paper; Iftekhar Iqbal’s ”The Railways and the Water Regime of the Eastern Bengal Delta,  c1845–1943” – read the full paper; Bernardo A. Michael’s ”Land, Labour, Local Power and the Constitution of Agrarian Territories on the Anglo-Gorkha Frontier, 1700–1815”; and Golam Mahabub Sarwar’s ”Sea Level Rise. A Threat to the Coast of Bangladesh”. More information.

On Wednesday 8 December 2009, Prof. Mörner will participate in the Copenhagen Climate Challenge Conference (held in Copenhagen 8–9 December 2009). Recently, he has conducted a study of sea level changes in Bangladesh, and came up with some surprising results. The conference, organised by the organisation Climate-Sense, coincides with the official UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) that is taking place in Copenhagen from 7-18 December 2009. More information.