The erosion of Particulate Organic Carbon (POC) from mountain belts and its burial at sea removes carbon from the atmosphere by photosynthesis and delivers it to long-term storage in marine sediments. My research is focussed on understanding and quantifying the movement of carbon from the land to the ocean, using a wide variety of techniques. This carbon can exist as "fossil" carbon eroded from rocks and re-deposited offshore, or "non-fossil" carbon eroded from the biosphere and added to the sedimentary record. Separating the input of these two types of carbon is important for quantify the efficiency of this method of carbon sequestration

 

During the course of my PhD I have built up a wealth of experience in stable-isotope geochemistry, field sedimentology, laboratory techniques and data analysis. I have coupled stable isotope measurements of organic carbon and nitrogen with Raman spectroscopy measurements in order to de-convolve the input of non-fossil and multiple types of fossil carbon into marine sediments. My fieldwork has taken me to Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Taiwan, where I have collected samples independently and in collaboration with workers from Cambridge, Southampton, Oxford and Taiwan. Using this coupled approach I have managed to study the partitioning of carbon species throughout an entire fluvial-marine sedimentary system whilst resolving changes in carbon composition at cm-resolution within single sedimentary layers. I have found evidence for the natural sequestration of massive amounts of organic carbon, which has implications for the global carbon cycle, climate feedbacks and marine processes, including the effect of sea-level change on organic carbon sequestration.


Publications: 2006-Present

Last updated on 29-Sep-11 13:48