Research Interests

I am a stratigrapher, sedimentologist, and paleontologist. My research focuses on climatic and ecological changes during major Earth system transitions, such as the Eocene-Oligocene Transition (EOT) and the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary. I investigate orographic controls on climate and water chemistry in terrestrial environments, the use of geochemical proxies to reconstruct past climate conditions, and the geochronology of carbonate rocks to refine stratigraphic frameworks and paleoclimate interpretations. My work ultimately seeks to understand how terrestrial systems record and respond to environmental change, including the allogenic and autogenic processes that shape the continental stratigraphic record.

A variety of compelling questions emerge from studying modern and ancient continental systems. Investigating these systems provides critical insights into how environmental change shapes depositional environments, the distribution of organisms and fossils, and the preservation of climate signals in terrestrial archives.

Climatology in terrestrial systems

(In no particular order)

Investigating climatic and ecological transformations across the Eocene–Oligocene Transition (EOT) and the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary using sedimentological, geochemical, and fossil records.
Exploring the role of orographic uplift in modulating precipitation patterns, temperature gradients, and water chemistry in fluvial and lacustrine depositional systems.
Reconstructing continental paleoclimates using multi-proxy datasets to assess long-term variability in hydrologic regimes, seasonality, and ecosystem structure.

Geochemistry

(In no particular order)

Interpreting stable isotope and elemental signatures from lacustrine carbonates to reconstruct paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic conditions across terrestrial basins.
Establishing chronostratigraphic frameworks for nonmarine carbonate successions using U-Pb dating and linking these ages with regional and global climate dynamics.
Inferring terrestrial paleoelevation changes using stable isotope altimetry and carbonate geochemistry to constrain topographic evolution during orogenic and climatic transitions.

(In no particular order)

Paleosol development, classification, and use for interpreting past climates.
Sedimentary basin development to understand mountain building events and the evolution of lacustrine and fluvial systems.
Allogenic and autogenic controls on continental sequence stratigraphic architecture, including channel stacking, paleosol formation, coal formation, and applications for petroleum.
Channel avulsion mechanisms, compensational stacking, and how avulsion styles are preserved and interpreted from the rock record.

(In no particular order)

Taphonomy and distribution of vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, and trace fossils to reconstruct paleocommunities and asses how preservation creates bias in the fossil record.
Linking biological and sedimentological records to past climate change in order to better reconstruct ancient ecosystems.
Identifying ecological successions across ancient landscapes to better identify lacustrine depositional environments and how they evolve through time.

Succession of paleosols underlying several channel sand deposits.

Well-developed paleosol from the Fort Union Formation.

Root halos and woody plant material preserved in ironstone.

Petrified wood from the Fort Union Formation.

Tidal bundling from the Hell Creek Formation.

Succession of shoreface sand from the Cannonball Formation.

Several molds of woody plant debris in a channel lag deposit.

Small burrows from foreshore to shoreface deposits.