Research
Stories of microbial life emerging in small ponds, colonizing early reefs, exhaling oxygen into the atmosphere and persisting through the deepest freezes is far from complete. Our work in the MIT Laboratory for Geomicrobiology and Microbial Sedimentology focuses on developing a quantitative and process-oriented understanding of morphological and chemical microbial biosignatures. The ongoing projects address the following questions:
- How biological, chemical and physical processes shape sedimentary rocks? We investigate stromatolite morphogenesis by experiments, observations and theory in a number of collaborations with: Dr. D. Rothman (MIT), Dr. H. Vali (McGill), Dr. J.-L. Guerquin-Kern (I. Curie), Dr. T-D. Wu (I. Curie), Dr. N. Beukes (U. Johannesburg), Dr. A. Knoll (Harvard U.)
- What did ecosystems look like between the Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth events and how did they influence the carbon cycle? We explore the record of eukaryotic microfossils in Neoproterozoic carbonate rocks (NSF grant funded) in collaboration with Dr. S. Pruss (Smith College), Dr. F. Macdonald (Harvard U.) and Dr. D. Lahr (University of Sao Paolo), Dr. D. Rothman (MIT).
- What controls multiple-sulfur isotope signatures of microbial sulfate reduction? We study the relationships between the physiology and molecular diversity of sulfate reducing microbes and sulfur disproportionating microbes and sulfur isotope fractionations in collaboration with Dr. S. Ono (MIT).
We encourage prospective graduate students and postdocs to contact us for more information.
Cyanobacterial mats growing on hard substrate in a stirred tank.