Subject Area
Climatology, Meteorology
Marine Geology, Geophysics
Activities
My Ph.D. work in the Department of Geosciences, the Pennsylvania State University, USA (completed in 2004), concerned organic geochemistry of Early Cretaceous petroleum rocks from West African lacustrine basins. I investigated molecular and compound-specific C and H isotopic composition of bulk organic matter and individual biomarkers. Since my postdoctoral research at Yale University, USA (2004-2006), I have been involved in laboratory and field investigations of environmental and post-depositional processes that influence C and H isotopic composition of lipid biomarkers from terrestrial and aquatic plants. I was involved in field studies of modern tree leaves throughout climatic gradients in California and Hawaii, USA.
Starting in 2005, I have been leading a multiyear study that investigates isotopic composition of leaf wax biomarkers at an experimental set-up in Eastern Washington State, USA. This work has been carried out in collaboration with Mark Pagani at Yale University. As part of this collaboration, I have been investigating lacustrine and marine sedimentary records of hydrological conditions during the Holocene (the Yucatan Peninsula) and Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (the Arctic Ocean), respectively. In 2007, I started a new project in collaboration with colleagues from the UK, Germany, Italy, and Spain in order to conduct a long-term investigation of stable isotope composition of leaf wax biomarkers from higher plants in Western Europe.
Sea regions of study
Arctic Ocean
North Atlantic Ocean
Skills
Stable Isotopes in Sedimentary Organic Compounds, Biomarkers
Gas Chromatography, Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry, Gas Chromatography Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry