Biogeochemical cycles impart significant control on ecosystem structure, function, and ecosystem services, such as nutrient sequestration, transformation, long-term storage, mitigation of water quality concerns, and carbon fixation/mineralization processes that support local food webs.
Isotope geochemistry offers novel insight into sources, processes, and fates of a broad array of elements that are relevant to ecosystem science. These geochemical insights also integrate well with food web studies, offering a more complete assessment of critical nutrient sources, fixation, and ultimately secondary production.
This project includes studies that explicitly focus on elements (for example, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur) that have strong linkages between geochemical compartments and biological production (for example, nutrient sources/fates, decomposition, carbon fixation, food webs) as well as related processes for non-essential elements (for example, bioaccumulation) and long-term storage/permanence important to ecosystem function and persistence (for example, soil carbon). The latter also includes studies of natural environmental archives (for example, tree rings, sediments) that inform on historical and contemporary ecosystem health with the goal of aiding conservation and management.
Geology, Geophysics, and Geochemistry Stable Isotope Laboratory (GSIL)
Biogeochemical cycles impart significant control on ecosystem structure, function, and ecosystem services, such as nutrient sequestration, transformation, long-term storage, mitigation of water quality concerns, and carbon fixation/mineralization processes that support local food webs.
Isotope geochemistry offers novel insight into sources, processes, and fates of a broad array of elements that are relevant to ecosystem science. These geochemical insights also integrate well with food web studies, offering a more complete assessment of critical nutrient sources, fixation, and ultimately secondary production.
This project includes studies that explicitly focus on elements (for example, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur) that have strong linkages between geochemical compartments and biological production (for example, nutrient sources/fates, decomposition, carbon fixation, food webs) as well as related processes for non-essential elements (for example, bioaccumulation) and long-term storage/permanence important to ecosystem function and persistence (for example, soil carbon). The latter also includes studies of natural environmental archives (for example, tree rings, sediments) that inform on historical and contemporary ecosystem health with the goal of aiding conservation and management.