RECENT LAB NEWS
- We welcomed Charles Jahren Conrad to the lab, all the way from Blindern High School in Norway, for some summer lab work and training in stable isotope analyses.
- Congratulations to Allison Higdon for successfully defending her thesis on reconstructing seasonal temperatures in Louisiana using high-resolution oxygen isotope measurements across Pinus palustris (Longleaf pine) tree-rings!
- Our research on oxygen isotope measurements of modern and fossil wood was written up as a news story for the University of Louisiana at Lafayette!
- Congratulations to Danielle Noto for successfully defending her thesis titled, "Seasonal Temperature Recorded in High-Resolution Oxygen Isotope Profiles across growth rings of Pinus pumila from Arctic Siberia"!
- Congratulations to Bárbara Almeida on being awarded 2023 UL Lafayette Outstanding Thesis Winner and Conference of Southern Graduate Schools Master's Thesis Award nominee!
- Junbo Ren's second paper from his PhD work was published in Chemical Geology (see Publications page for details)! Junbo is now a postdoc at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
- Brian visited St. Thomas More High School to talk about Climate Change in south Louisiana.
- Danielle Noto presented her thesis work at the 22nd Annual Graduate Student Symposium. You can find a link to her abstract here.
- We had four abstracts accepted for presentation at the annual AGU meeting in Chicago, IL. Check out the Abstracts page for details.
- Congratulations to Ryan Hood, who was honored as the Outstanding Master’s Graduate Finalist for the College of Sciences!
- Ryan Hood successfully defended his MS thesis on reconstructing seasonal rainfall in southwestern Louisiana. Congrats, Ryan!
- Danielle Noto presented her work to reconstruct seasonal temperature in Arctic Siberia at the annual Geological Society of America meeting. You can find more on the Abstracts page.
- Our work on "Possible Methane Release during the Middle Devonian: A New Carbon Isotope Record from Mimerdalen, Svalbard" was accepted for presentation at the CAGE International Conference on Methane in a Changing Arctic. You can find more on the Abstracts page.
- New paper published in Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry! The work describes efforts to measure position-specific stable carbon isotope values of serine, for application as a proxy for plant metabolic fluxes, including photorespiration. See the Publications page for details.
- Postdoc Jacob Warner will be presenting our research on Arctic temperatures during the Eocene at Goldschmidt 2022. You can find more on the Abstracts page.
- Our work, "A non-destructive technique for assessing fossil wood decay using ATR-FTIR spectroscopy," has been accepted for presentation in the GSA 2022 North-Central/Southeastern Joint Section Meeting. You can find more on the Abstracts page.
- We welcome Peyton Dardeau (undergraduate student) and Dr. Jacob Warner (postdoctoral scientist) to the lab!
- Danielle Noto, previously an undergraduate researcher, is now a Graduate Research Assistant working on her MS degree in Geology.
- Research based on Robert Narmour's thesis work was accepted for publication in Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences! You can find more on the Publications page.
- We had 4 abstracts accepted for the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting! Be sure to check out the presentations virtually or in-person in December.
- The first chapter of Junbo Ren's PhD work on fossil wood from China was published in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. See Publications page for details.
- Congratulations to Bárbara Almeida on TWO awards: Spring 2021 Richard G. Neiheisel-Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Endowed Graduate Award in Liberal Arts, Arts, and Sciences and Outstanding Master's Graduate for the School of Geosciences! Bárbara defended her thesis last month and graduated in May. Read about her accomplishments here.
- Jamie Vornlocher's MS work was accepted for publication in Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology! Jamie is now a PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh.
- Bárbara Almeida presented her work to determine seasonal temperatures in the Arctic during the Miocene at the 6th Annual Regional Student Scholars Forum.
- We welcome Allison Higdon to the lab!
- Adrian Charles presented his research (virtually) at the annual Goldschmidt geochemistry meeting. See the Abstracts page for a summary of this work.
- Our work to reconstruct CO2 across the last 23 million years of Earth history was published as a Feature Article in Geology (open access). A media summary of the work can be found here.
- Adrian Charles presented his research at the 5th Annual Regional Student Scholars Forum at LSU Shreveport.
- New paper on carbon isotopes in wood with William Lukens and Peace Eze published in Geology (open access).
- Bill Lukens accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at James Madison University, and will be starting in the Department of Geology and Environmental Science this Fall. Congratulations Bill!
- New paper accepted for ACS Earth and Space Chemistry with MS student Taylor Chapman on using plant waxes to reconstruct CO2 in deep time. See the Publications page for details.
- We have a new paper on Eocene climate and CO2 proxies published in the open access journal, Geoscientific Model Development.
- Nicholas Geyer successfully defended his thesis, "Alternative Methods Analysis for Trace Elements of the Wolfberry Shale." Congratulations Nick!
- We have a new paper published in Integrative Organismal Biology with Biology PhD student Kory Evans on fish stable isotope data in electric fish.
- Robert Narmour successfully defended his thesis, "The Effect of Seasonal and Daily Precipitation on Intra-Ring δ18O Profiles." Congratulations Rob!
- Jamie Vornlocher successfully defended her thesis, "Identification of the East Asian Summer Monsoon during the late Oligocene using High-Resolution Carbon Isotope Analysis of Fossil and Modern Wood." Congratulations Jamie!
- A new paper titled, "Mercury anomalies across the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum," has been published in Climate of the Past. See the Publications page for details.
- We had TWO Grand Prize winners at the 18th Graduate Student Symposium at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette! Jamie Vornlocher won for her poster titled, "An assessment of monsoon variability under elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels," and Robert Narmour won for his talk titled, "Extreme precipitation events recorded in the oxygen isotope composition of tree-ring cellulose." Congratulations to both students!
- Our work to determine the source and magnitude of atmospheric CO2 change across Paleogene global warming events was published as an invited research article in Global and Planetary Change. See the Publications page for more information.
- Our new review paper on interpreting carbon isotope records has been published in Earth-Science Reviews (open access!). A link to the paper can be found on the Publications page.