PI: Ilya Bobrovskiy

Funding source: Branco Weiss Fellowship, Society in Science

Collaborators: Christian Hallmann (GFZ), Heda Agić (Durham University), Steven LoDuca (Eastern Michigan University), John Eiler (California Institute of Technology).

Topics: Biosignatures & Early Life on Earth, Climate and Landscape Evolution, Molecular Isotomics

Summary: The history of life on our planet is recorded in rocks, but each rock scientists examine has accumulated for hundreds, or even thousands of years, and contains partially preserved remains of organisms that died there throughout all this time. The project combines the analysis of fossils, molecular fossils, and stable carbon isotopes in a series of new techniques that allow deconvolving biomarker and stable carbon isotope signals of ancient rocks. It aims to resolve paleobiology and paleoecology of the first ecologically successful eukaryotes, decipher the carbon isotope record associated with them, and ultimately better constrain the environmental controls on the origins of complex life on Earth.