Princeton University

Catherine Rose, Ph.D. Student
I am interested in using original field observations and a range of geochemical proxies to explore key Earth history events. I am fascinated by Deep Time glacial deposits and their implications for past climate change. My research investigates the sedimentology and geochemistry of South Australian deposits associated with the youngest Neoproterozoic ice age to enhance our understanding of the physical conditions operating during the extreme climatic perturbations envisaged for a snowball Earth.

Jon Husson, Ph.D. Student
Deciphering Earth's history through the sedimentary record requires a decidedly multidisciplinary approach. Physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and modeling can all play important roles. Among the countless questions of earth history, I am currently interested in studying how climate, ocean chemistry and biology interacted to set the stage for the rise of animals. I seek to couple geological field observations and mapping with low-temperature geochemical analyses to help contribute to this question. Additionally, I will also learn techniques of U-Pb geochronology. Absolute dates are vitally important to the study of earth history, as they help to test and constrain our models of evolutionary, chemical and climatic change.

Blake Dyer, Ph.D. Student
Ancient atmospheres and organisms are intricately tied to the geologic processes defining the surface of our planet, particularly the way in which sedimentary geology manifests itself in the geologic record, physically and chemically.  The rocks in this record represent pages of a vast history book from which we can glean fascinating stories of the ancient earth.  Interpreting these clues to the past requires fundamental understanding of the chemical behaviors of isotope systems as well as the ability to piece together complex and incomplete field observations while maintaining a firm handle on time.  I am interested in investigating the current natural world as well as the geologic record with this perspective in an attempt to garner a greater understanding of the interactions between different forces of our dynamic planet throughout Earth’s history.

Kevin Lewis, Hess Postdoctoral Fellow
I am a planetary scientist interested in using the stratigraphic records exposed on planetary bodies to understand their geologic history.  On Earth, I am actively working on the Eocene Green River Formation of the western United States, which records the evolution of a number of large lacustrine basins over several million years.  The goal of this research is to investigate the causes of repetitive fluctuations in depositional conditions through time, which have been suggested to result from changes in the Earth's orbital (Milankovitch) parameters.  Our study involves the synthesis of remote sensing data and field observations to quantitatively evaluate this hypothesis by applying spectral techniques to the recovered stratigraphic signals.  

Laura Poppick
I recently graduated from Bates College where I studied the modern depositional processes proximal to a polythermal tidewater glacier complex in Kongsfjorden, Svalbard using sediment cores. I am generally interested in using combined stratigraphic and geochemical techniques to explore paleoenvironments. 

From left to right: Christine Chen ‘13 and Andrew Budnick ‘13 are working as lab assistants preparing Ethiopian and Australian samples for geochemical and paleomagnetic analysis.

Nick Swanson-Hysell *11 is currently a visiting faculty member at Carleton College.
The way in which sediments are shaped, moved, and eventually deposited, is governed by the physical and biological processes of a planet's surface. Through the study of ancient sedimentary rocks on Earth we can gain a window into our planet's varied, and sometimes tumultuous, past. My research seeks to peer through this window using a variety of geochemical (stable C, S and Sr isotopes, elemental analyses) and geophysical (paleomagnetic) methods. When such time-series records are paired with detailed field observations they became powerful recorders of Earth history revealing local and global stories about tectonics, climate, the biosphere and their interactions.

Bob Kopp was a STEP Postdoctoral Fellow (2007-2009) with Michael Oppenheimer and I. During that time, Bob and I published papers on sea level during the last interglacial period, magnetization of Holocene platformal carbonates in the Bahamas, and Paleocene-Eocene boundary climate and ocean geochemical change recorded in marine sediments from the Atlantic margin of the US.  Bob is now a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow working in the Office of Climate Change Policy & Technology, U.S. Department of Energy.

Ryan Ewing was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton in 2009-2010.  While here, Ryan helped develop the aeolian curriculum and field trips for GEO 370/570 Sedimentology.  He also drew on his expertise studying sand dunes on Earth and Mars, and began a project studying aeolian sediments deposited during the Marinoan glaciation, 640 million years ago. Ryan currently is a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech.

Claire Calmet spent a semester as a postdoc at Princeton in 2009. Initially trained as a population geneticist, and deeply interested in all aspects of Earth and Life History, she participated in the 3D modeling of pre-Marinoan fossils, and performed geochemical analyses on sediments from the Cryogenian period. Claire currently is teaching Earth and Life Sciences in Paris, France.

Cristi Proistosescu '09 is now a Ph.D. student with Peter Huybers at Harvard University. We hope to publish his senior thesis soon: Proistosescu, C., Huybers, P. and Maloof, A.C., An objective statistical test for eccentricity forcing of Oligo-Miocene climate.