Welcome to the Terrestrial Paleoclimate Research Group at

James Madison University


We reconstruct the history of climate, vegetation, and landscape processes from Deep Time.

Explore our areas of active research:

Explore our lab facilities:

Analysis of major and minor elemental oxides on rocks and soils using fused beads, as well as loss-on-ignition analyses

Analysis of CNOH isotopes on organic materials, water, and carbonate

Standard Operating Procedures for sample preparation and analysis across a variety of instruments and approaches

Two Recent Papers in Science Magazine*:

Peppe et al. (2023) Oldest evidence of abundant C4 grasses and habitat heterogeneity in eastern Africa

(download a pdf at this link)

MacLatchy et al. (2023) The evolution of hominoid locomotor versatility: Evidence from Moroto, a 21 Ma site in Uganda

(download a pdf at this link)

*Downloading a copy of these pdfs constitutes a request for educational or scholarly research.