PhD in Geobiology - Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction in Pasadena United States | California Institute of Technology

Geologists uncover insights into Earth's primordial conditions through multiple indicators: sediment textures and formations, chemical and isotopic signatures, microscopic to visible fossils, and more. At Caltech, we tackle this challenge from both temporal perspectives - examining contemporary organisms and settings to interpret preserved signals, while also analyzing ancient deposits to decode our planet's state across millennia, eons, or even billions of years.
An interdisciplinary investigation of the Neoproterozoic Athel Silicylite employed sedimentary patterns, inorganic isotope data, and organic biomarkers to establish a groundbreaking framework for this geologically distinct formation (Grotzinger, Sessions, Eiler)
Caltech researchers pioneered an innovative technique for analyzing sulfur isotopes in minuscule sulfate samples from carbonate rocks, yielding unprecedented insights into Archean ocean sulfur cycles (Adkins, Fischer, Sessions)
Carbonate studies using clumped isotope methods
By examining hydrogen isotope ratios in leaf-wax biomarkers, our team traced western Sumatra's hydrological patterns over 15 millennia, revealing significantly more stable conditions compared to the western equatorial Pacific.