Palaeoclimate, Palaeobiology, and Palaeoenvironments, the study of sediment and fossil archives using complimentary techniques (stratigraphy, sedimentology, geobiology, geochemistry, palaeontology)
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Research highlights include:
- Reconstruction of ancient latitudinal biodiversity patterns. (Upchurch: Manion et al. 2012b; 2014)
- Analysis of dinosaurian evolutionary history: diversity (Upchurch: 2011); body mass (Benson et al. 2014) and monographic description of sauropod and theropod dinosaurs (Upchurch: Mannion et al. 2012a; 2013; D'Emic et al 2013; Poropat et al 2014; Xu et al. 2012).
- Determining the provenance and residence time of dune sand in the great sand seas of Namibia, Arabia and China using a combination of sedimentary petrography, detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology, and cosmogenic nuclide dating. (Vermeesch)
- The first examination of the response of ocean chemistry to extreme post-Snowball Earth global warming, using calcium and magnesium isotopes. (Pogge von Strandmann: Kasemann et al., 2014)
- Detailed nanoscale geochemical and petrographic analysis of the microfossiliferous Doushantuo phosphorite (China) suggest that cyanobacteria were thriving after a snowball Earth event and may have played an important role in phosphogenesis. (Papineau: 2013)
- The first estimates of high-resolution nannoplankton species extinction and origination rates from the PETM that show increased extinction over the duration of the event related to extreme warming and acidification of photic zone habitats (Bown)
- Refinement, to the point-of-use, of Mg/Ca palaeo-thermometry with belemnites: its application yielded the first quantitative evidence for the existence of polar ice-caps in the Cretaceous greenhouse world (McArthur)
- The codification and issue of a calibration standard for Phanerozoic Sr-isotope stratigraphy that has been adopted by >100 bodies worldwide (McArthur)
- Quantification of temperature, productivity, pCO2 and biotic response at the Eocene-Oligocene Transition (Wade)