Introduction
I am a Sedimentary Geochemist and Paleolimnologist, and I apply geological and geochemical methods to study past climate and environmental change including recent human impacts. Sediment cores collected from lakes are a fantastic archive of this kind of information, and student researchers and I are using cores in several projects.
Our understanding of modern climate change relies on a firm grasp of the long and rich history of previous climate trends, cycles, and outliers. My research has focused on Holocene (last 10,000 yrs) sediment core records from small lakes that provide local to regional climate signals. I am currently working on a collaborative project with UST Geology faculty, staff, and students in the Great Basin region of southern Nevada where we are exploring past drought episodes. My students and I apply sedimentology and geochemical methods including elemental and stable isotopic analysis of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen in organic remains and carbonates from lakes.
Humans have transformed the landscape and our influence extends to lakes and streams. I work with collaborators at the Science Museum of Minnesota’s St. Croix Watershed Research Laboratory to collect and reconstruct histories of nutrient inputs and land use change here in Twin Cities metro area lakes. The information is applied by watershed managers to best maintain water resources. A current project is focused on histories from several lakes in the Comfort Lake-Forest Lake Watershed District.
The Polar and near-Polar regions are warming at more than twice the global average. I am interested in climatic change on decadal to millenial scales from these areas and my past research has included work in Antarctica and the Patagonian Andes of South America. Recently, I conceived and co-developed a field course in Iceland that is offered periodically to UST students interested in geology, environmental science, and sustainability.