Organic Geochemistry

Our group has expertise in state-of-the-art techniques in both analytical chemistry and molecular biology to characterize the bulk chemical, functional group, and isotopic composition of physiologically and environmentally relevant molecules (i.e., biomarkers) found in natural organic matter and cultured organisms stemming from all three domains of life (i.e., Eukarya, Bacteria, and Archaea). Our research focuses on biogeochemical cycles in the surface and deep oceans, as well as in estuaries, inland waters, and sediments.

Research Interests

• Organic Geochemistry
• Biogeochemical Cycles
• Stable Isotopes
• Microbial Food Webs

BIOMARKer INventions and INnovations

What it is that I do here: an el­ev­ator con­ver­sa­tion:

Firstly, can you appreciate the importance of plant life for the planet? …Over centuries we have learned the relative importance and cultivation practices of many plant species: for crops, medicine, decoration, architecture, etc. Perhaps most importantly, plants on land and in the ocean are a natural sustenance that take carbon from the atmosphere, turn it into living biomass, and produce the oxygen that we breathe.

EQUALLY IMPORTANT as carbon assimilation by photosynthesis, is the removal of organic carbon via degradation of living biomass. Humans have also learned to benefit from this natural process; examples include composting, treating wastewater, and even brewing!

WE HAVE ONLY BEGUN to explore the many varieties of carbon degradation mechanisms on Earth. I am currently researching these and other capabilities of micro-organisms in marine sediments…

Scientific Activities

Ongoing research themes

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is a black box of or­ganic mo­lecules in both the lo­gist­ical sense, that we vaguely un­der­stand how it cycles but do not know the un­der­ly­ing mech­an­isms that con­trol this cyc­ling, and in the aero­naut­ical sense, that DOM re­cords the mo­lecu­lar “con­ver­sa­tions” of events that have tran­spired. In­deed, DOM is of­ten de­pic­ted as a cent­ral com­pon­ent in mar­ine food webs, hav­ing im­port­ant ties to all do­mains of life and the global C cycle; however, the pro­cesses that con­trol its dis­tri­bu­tions and fluxes re­main poorly defined and fur­ther in­vest­ig­a­tion of its com­pos­i­tion and re­act­iv­ity is ne­ces­sary to re­solve en­vir­on­mental phe­nom­ena and an­thro­po­genic for­cings.

Biogeo­chem­ical Net­works: The gen­er­a­tion of large OTUs, geo­chem­istry, lipidomic data­sets has al­lowed for sci­ent­ists to ex­plore the re­la­tion­ship and po­ten­tial drivers of mi­cro­bial life be­low the sea­floor. Us­ing multi-vari­ate ana­lysis tech­niques, I am co­ordin­at­ing the res­ults and ef­forts of a team of sci­ent­ists to identify dia­gnostic trends in the dis­tri­bu­tion of mi­crobes and their cell mem­brane bio­mark­ers.

Projects

Head

All publications (76)