Research in Environmental Sciences at Indiana State University



 

  

 

Faculty at ISU are actively engaged in numerous environmentally oriented research projects.  Most of which support field and laboratory-oriented graduate and undergraduate research projects.  For more information on individual faculty research projects, visit the faculty member web page

 

Dr. Sandra Brake

• Microbial communities in acid mine drainage environments

• Geochemistry of coal-related acid mine drainage systems

• Plant stress associated with mining activities

Dr. Jennifer Latimer

• Phosphorus and carbon geochemistry of paleo-Lake Mababe, Botswana: indicators of landscape development and internal lake processes

• Phosphorus geochemistry during Cretaceous ocean anoxic events at Demerara Rise (OAE2)

• Export production in the south Pacific Ocean on glacial/interglacial time scales

• Paleoproductivity in the Bering Sea over the last glacial cycle

• Dust iron fluxes to the south Pacific Ocean

• Metal bioavailability and remobilization in stream and lake sediments impacted by acid mine drainage

• Export production in the south Atlantic Ocean at glacial terminations

Dr. Tony Rathburn          Paleolab

• Geochemistry and ecology of cold methane seeps

• Development of a quantitative means by which marine methane seepage can be determined in the geologic record

• Ecological and biogeochemical responses of modern and ancient seafloor ecosystems to organic loading and low-oxygen conditions

• Relationships between environmental changes and trace element composition of calcareous microfauna

• Seasonality in deep-sea microfauna as a response to environmental changes in the water column

Dr. Jim Speer

• Use of tree-rings to reconstruct environmental variables such as fire history, insect outbreak, and climate  (http://dendrolab.indstate.edu/ )

Dr. Elena Perez

• Cenozoic paleoceanography and paleoclimatology based on deep-sea sediments

• Ecology and paleoecology of marine microfauna

• Biogeochemistry of methane seeps