About

I am an Associate Professor at the University of Southampton and a Fellow of The Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artifical intelligence. My research explores the major controls on Earth surface conditions over geologic time. This includes the effects of tectonic, volcanic, sedimentary, and metamorphic processes; their interactions, and how these shape the biosphere and climate system over different timescales.

TEAM

Over the past ten years, I have supervised 14 PhD students (ten to completion and four in progress), six of these as lead supervisor, and 3 PDRAs. Over the same period, I have supervised 20 MSci research projects, 5 of which have led to publications in leading international journals (GRL, Lithos, Geology, Scientific Reports, Bulletin of Volcanology).

Current Ph.D. students:

Rhiannon Rees

Volcanology & geochemistry

Emma Watts

Volcanology & geochemistry

Emma Horn

Igneous geochemistry

Ben Callow

Carbon Capture & Storage

Contact the lab to find out about current opportunities

Postdoctoral Researchers:

Dr Thea Hincks

Machine learning

Dr Jack Longman

Global geochemical cycles

Dr Hayley Manners

Organic geochemistry

• Dr Thea Hincks is currently working on NERC project, Environmental tipping points during supercontinent breakup (Gernon PI, NE/R004978/1), and the Turing Institute project, Machine learning of seismicity induced by hydraulic fracturing (Gernon PI).

• Dr Hayley Manners (now a Lecturer at Plymouth University) worked on NERC project, The role of marine diagenesis of tephra in the carbon cycle (Gernon Co-I, NE/K00543X/1)

• Dr Jack Longman (now at the University of Oxford) worked on NERC project, The role of marine diagenesis of tephra in the carbon cycle (Gernon Co-I, NE/K00543X/1)

Completed Ph.D. students:

• Dr Holly Elliott, 2011-2015 (now Lecturer of Economic Geology at the University of Derby)

• Dr Melanie Siegburg, 2015-2019 (now a geologist with the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, Germany)

• Dr Stuart Hatter, 2013-2017 (Research Fellow at Montserrat Volcano Observatory, and now a geologist at Badley Ashton)

• Dr Finnigan Illsley-Kemp, 2015-2018 (now Postdoctoral Fellow in Volcano Geodynamics, Victoria University of Wellington)

• Dr Tim Hughes, 2012-2016 (now Software Engineer, Riskaware)

• Dr John Emeana, 2012-2016 (now Director, Crown Analytics Ltd)

• Dr Maya Coussens, 2012-2016 (now Logistics Coordinator)

• Dr Michael Clare, 2012-2016 (now Marine Geoscientist, NOCS)

• Dr Melis Cevatoglu, 2011-2015 (now a Senior Geophysicist)

• Dr James Davey, 2015-2019 (now a consultant at SRK)

STUDY LOCATIONS

I have carried out extensive geological fieldwork in sixteen countries over six continents, and cumulatively spent over two years in the field collecting data. Click on the green symbols above to see some of the results of this work, and see my CV for a more comprehensive list of field locations.

COLLABORATORS

• Neoproterozoic glacial origin of the Great Unconformity (Dr Brenhin Keller, USA).

• Snowball Earth and the geology of Cryogenian glaciations (Prof Paul Hoffman, Harvard).

• Orbital forcing on Snowball Earth (Dr Ross Mitchell, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing).

• Environmental tipping points during supercontinent breakup (Prof Dietmar Müller, University of Sydney & Dr Andrew Merdith, Université Lyon).

• Earth and Moon impact flux over geologic time (Dr Bill Bottke, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), USA).

• Tectonic forcing of global chemical weathering in the Phanerozoic (Prof Eelco Rohling, ANU Canberra).

• Bayesian Networks and Model Learning for seismicity and climate applications (Prof Roger Cooke, Resources for the Future, Washington DC), with Dr Thea Hincks and Prof Willy Aspinall.

• Helium isotope variability at Kilauea volcano (Dr Rosie Jones & Prof Christopher Ballentine, Universiy of Oxford) with Emma Horn (Southampton).