Research:

    The lab studies climate variability in the tropical Atlantic, and the tropical and subtropical Pacific.  My research most commonly use materials collected from deep sea sediment cores, but I also occasionally use sediment traps to describe the relationship between modern processes and what is eventually deposited on the sea floor - this has the added benefit of allowing us to calibrate paleoclimate proxies to instrumental records.

    I currently have research projects in the Cariaco Basin (off of Venezuela), the Santa Barbara Basin (off of California), and the eastern tropical Pacific.  The Cariaco Basin contains a history of Intertropical Convergence Zone and trade wind variability, and a spectacular record of circum-North Atlantic climate change spanning the last 450,000 years.  The Santa Barbara Basin is influenced by the El Niño Southern Oscillation and large-scale circulation changes of the Pacific.  The eastern tropical Pacific contains one of the world's largest oxygen minimum zones, making it a key site for studying carbon and nitrogen cycling, as well as a place to explore the ventilation history of the deep Pacific.  Click on any of the red boxes above (or the buttons below) to learn more about each study site.

(image from the National Geophysical Data Center)

Cariaco Basin

Santa Barbara Basin

Eastern Tropical Pacific