Dr. Christine Hall
Postdoctoral research associate
Dr. Chrissy Hall is a new Zuckerman Postdoctoral Scholar with joint appointments in the Department of Marine Geosciences at the University of Haifa and the Department of Geosciences at the University of Connecticut, USA. She previously completed her PhD at the University of California, Riverside studying changes in ostracode community structure and morphology across Eocene Thermal Maximum 2. Before that, her Master’s project, also at UC Riverside, focused on enigmatic soft-bodied fossils with three-fold symmetry from the Ediacaran of South Australia. Her current research interests are focused on understanding the relationships between animals and changing aquatic environments in deep time, and how these changes vary between marine and freshwater settings. Her postdoctoral research uses changes in ostracode assemblages to help reconstruct paleoenvironmental changes in Pliocene paleolake deposits at two sites in Israel.
In her spare time, Chrissy enjoys reading and hiking.
Current Research
Using Sedimentology and Paleontology to Reconstruct Pliocene Paleoenvironmental Conditions in the Levantine Corridor
The goal of this research is to reconstruct the Pliocene paleoenvironmental conditions at two sites, Erk el Ahmar in the central Jordan valley and Bnot Lot at Mt. Sedom, to better understand the natural variability that controlled the landscapes and what organisms were able to live in the area. Paleoenvironmental conditions will be evaluated by analyzing the sedimentological properties and the microfossils contained within core and outcrop samples to assess what processes were influencing the deposition of those sediments. The bulk of the research will focus on investigating changes in ostracode (small, bivalved crustaceans) assemblages. Ostracodes are very diverse and occur in a wide range of aquatic environments and salinities, with individual species often having specific environmental tolerances, making them ideal for identifying environmental shifts through time. I will use the fossil assemblage data to determine aspects of the water quality, such as depth and salinity, of the aquatic settings. By combining these lines of evidence, this project will be able to develop a comprehensive view of the paleoenvironment of the region, and how changes in climatic processes impacted the area through time.
