Sessile Oak Forest, Dead Woman’s Ditch, North Somerset. Photograph - Limited Edition of 9

Somerset has the oldest evidence of coppicing in the UK. This ancient form of woodland management provides sustainable timber, many species adapting to the increased light on the forest floor which coppicing provides. Since it ceased in the last 100 years due to lower demand for timber and charcoal, the forest floor has become clogged with undergrowth and many woodland species have died out. Life on earth has been disrupted by five ‘mass extinction events’, the worst of which wiped out 95% of all life. Current rising carbon dioxide levels and rates of species extinction have led scientists to conclude that the planet is now experiencing a sixth mass extinction event. In 2011 the latest clues to the cause of a mass extinction event brought leading paleogeologists to North Somerset in the UK’s Westcountry. Here the cliffs and foreshores contained an inch-thick layer of rarely-exposed buff-coloured limestone - a layer of the fossil record below which life teemed, but above which most of the planet’s species simply vanished. I followed the team of paleogeologists as they pursued the two hundred million year old mystery. Adopting the same locations, I examined local historical and environmental records, hunting back through the spans of geological time for traces of other extinct ecosystems, transient echoes of the mass extinction. Photographing the residue that remains in the alchemy of the rocks or the shadows of the undergrowth, each image in the project reflects a particular ecosystem ‘die-off’. From the debris of a meteorite strike to the tell-tale traces of lethal sea level fluctuations; from the geomorphic evidence of the UK’s worst natural disaster to the traces of vanished communities. These ecosystems have dissipated to a new strata of dust, awaiting rediscovery by future paleogeologists. Clues to mass extinction events yet to come. Silver gelatin print on resin-coated paper (pearl finish) Paper size: 40 x 30 in. Image size: 34 x 25.5 in. Ed of 9 + 2 A/P’s