Life and Environments

This area of research encompasses palaeoclimate, palaeoenvironments, and palaeobiology. We aim to reconstruct past climatic, environmental, and biotic changes in the oceans and on the land, spanning a wide range of timescales from the Precambrian to the present day, with a view to understanding how the Earth system operates and how it might change in the future. We are particularly interested in aspects such as landscape dynamics, ice sheet-ocean-climate interactions, biogeochemical and carbon cycling, ecosystem changes, biogeography, and evolutionary responses to environmental change. 
 

Research Staff:

Dr Byron Adams, Prof Paul Bown, Prof Peter Clift, Dr Matthew Fox, Dr Lewis A. Jones, Dr Susan Little, Dr Philip Mannion, Prof John McArthur, Prof Graham Shields, Prof Paul Upchurch,  Prof Pieter Vermeesch, Prof Bridget Wade, Dr David Wilson 

To this end, we develop and apply a wide range of observational and analytical techniques to sedimentary and fossil archives, including isotope and trace-element geochemistry, geochronology, sedimentology, petrography, microfossil assemblages, 3D digital visualisation, and macroevolutionary and morphometric analysis. Such approaches are ground-truthed by laboratory experiments and modern calibrations, and the results are integrated with landscape, climate, and ecosystem modelling to explore the dynamics of past and future environmental change.

Laboratories and Research Groups:

Associated research groups:
The London Geochemistry & Isotope Centre
Palaeontology
Precambrian Research
London Geochronology Centre

The Earth Sciences department:
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Research Groups
PhD Opportunities