Education
2005 Ph.D Earth and Planetary Sciences (Isotope Geochemistry), U.C. Berkeley
2001 M.S. Civil and Environmental Engineering, U.C. Berkeley
1999 B.A. Environmental Earth Science, Dartmouth College
Active Projects
-
High resolution
paleoclimate records from uranium and silicon isotopic variations
in soil opal/carbonate.
-
Experimental
design and isotopic tracers for fluid flow and mineral-fluid
interactions at
the Coupled Thermal Hydrological Chemical Mechanical Biological
(THCMB)
experimental
facility at the the DUSEL (Deep Underground Science and Engineering
Laboratory) Site at the Homestake Mine.
- CO2 sequestration
in Ca- and Mg- silicate rocks: experimental studies and natural
annolgue
sites.
-
The
role of hydrologic
processes in determing chemical weathering rates
and biogeochemical processes along tectonic and climatic gradients.
-
Recurrence
intervals of large earthquakes along the New
Madrid Siesmic Zone from U-Th dating of
broken cave formations.
-
Fate and
transport of radionuclides/metals at
the Hanford Site.
Summary
of Research
My research
seeks to understand what controls mineral-fluid reaction
rates and how these rates are linked to long and short-term carbon
cycling. I use natural laboratories that span gradients in time,
hydrology, biology and parent material to establish
the relationships between geochemical processes
and
hydrologic/climatic,
geomorphic
and
geophysical processes. To quantify reaction rates I couple radiogenic
and stable isotopic tracers with reactive transport modeling approaches.
A second area
of my research focuses on low-temperature geochronology, and specifically
the geochronology of soils and terrestrial deposits. I am developing
new dating and isotopic proxy approaches using high-spatial
resolution analytical techniques (SIMS) in order to generate long-term
records that can be
used to directly quantify
the
relationship between atmospheric circulation, landscape evolution
and bulk climatic parameters.
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