Earth history

The past may be the key to the future. Over the course of its 4.6 billion year history the Earth has changed profoundly. Reconstructing this history is of fundamental humanistic importance and it provides insight into how the Earth system responds to forcing. A primary goal of our research is to improve reconstructions of Earth’s history through the development of new geochemical proxies and improved biogeochemical models. We are particularly interested in the early evolution of photosynthesis and the scope of the Precambrian biosphere, the history of seawater sulfate, the development and recovery from Phanerozoic ocean anoxic events, the role of weathering and volcanism in Cenozoic cooling, and quaternary environmental evolution in the Indo-Pacific region.