Gernon
About
I am a Professor of Earth Science at the University of Southampton and a former Fellow of the Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. My research investigates the forces shaping Earth’s surface over geologic time, including tectonic, volcanic, sedimentary, and metamorphic processes, their interactions, and their role in influencing climate across diverse timescales.
I founded the Earth Intelligence Laboratory (EILAB) to harness the power of innovative, interdisciplinary, and data-driven approaches in Earth and environmental science. This pioneering work achieved Breakthrough status in Science in 2024 and secured a $7.5 million grant from a philanthropic foundation—a member of the New York-based Science Philanthropy Alliance. EILAB addresses big, challenging questions about the evolution of the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, cryosphere, and biosphere, while also developing data-driven solutions to today’s complex societal challenges. My team's work has been featured in the New York Times, The Guardian and the BBC.
PROJECTS
More information about selected active research projects
FIELDWORK
See the locations we work on across the globe
CONTACT US
Get in touch to find out more about our exciting research and opportunities
TEAM
Current and former PhDs and Postdocs in my Group
COLLABORATORS
Active international collaborations
IN THE NEWS
A selection of news stories featuring the Gernon Lab
TEAM
Over the past twelve years, I have supervised 17 PhD students (fourteen to completion and three in progress), six of these as lead supervisor, and 4 PDRAs. Over the same period, I have supervised over 20 MSci research projects, with approximately half of these leading to high-quality publications in leading international journals, for example, Nature (2), Nature Geoscience, Geology and Geophysical Research Letters.
Current Postdoctoral Researchers:
Dr Thea Hincks
Machine learning
Dr Chloe Griffin
Stratigraphy/sedimentology
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Dr Thea Hincks is currently working on the project "Decoding cyclicity in Earth's ice ages", supported by the WoodNext Foundation. Dr Hincks is an expert in machine learning and developing advanced statistical models to uncover patterns and dependencies within complex environmental data streams.
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Dr Chloe Griffin has extensive expertise in orbital forcing, time series and spectral analysis, cyclostratigraphy, sedimentology, and Earth surface processes. Dr Griffin’s research focuses on how periodic, singular, and abrupt signals of environmental change propagate across landscapes and into strata.
Current Ph.D. students:
Sayon Jyoti Beura
Geology of Ice-Ages & Paleoclimate Modelling
Aspen Sartin
Paleoclimate & Ocean Biogeochemistry
Jessica Rawlings
Kimberlite geochemistry
Morgan Bugler
Crustal Growth & Evolution
Recently Completed Ph.D. students:
Rhiannon Rees
Volcanology & geochemistry
Now at Environment Agency
Emma Watts
Volcanology & geochemistry
Now at Swansea University
Emma Horn
Volcanology & geochemistry
Now at University of Oxford
Completed Ph.D. students:
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Dr Holly Elliott, 2011-2015 (now Lecturer of Economic Geology at the University of Derby)
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Dr Melanie Siegburg, 2015-2019 (now a geologist with the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, Germany)
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Dr Stuart Hatter, 2013-2017 (Research Fellow at Montserrat Volcano Observatory, and now a geologist at Badley Ashton)
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Dr Finnigan Illsley-Kemp, 2015-2018 (now Postdoctoral Fellow in Volcano Geodynamics, Victoria University of Wellington)
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Dr Tim Hughes, 2012-2016 (now Software Engineer, Riskaware)
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Dr John Emeana, 2012-2016 (now Director, Crown Analytics Ltd)
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Dr Maya Coussens, 2012-2016 (now Logistics Coordinator, Coussens Cranes)
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Dr Michael Clare, 2012-2016 (now Marine Geoscientist, NOCS)
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Dr Melis Cevatoglu, 2011-2015 (now a Senior Geophysicist)
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Dr James Davey, 2015-2019 (now a consultant at SRK)
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Dr Ben Callow, 2016-2020 (now Postdoctoral Researcher at Ghent University)
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Dr Emma Horn, 2019-2023 (now Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Oxford)
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Dr Emma Watts, 2019-2023 (now Postdoctoral Researcher at Swansea University)
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Dr Rhiannon Rees, 2020-2024 (now environmental analyst at UK Environment Agency)
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
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Landscape evolution in the continental breakup aftermath (Prof Jean Braun, GFZ, Germany).
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Neoproterozoic glacial origin of the Great Unconformity (Dr Brenhin Keller, USA).
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Snowball Earth and the geology of Cryogenian glaciations (Prof Paul Hoffman, Harvard).
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Orbital forcing on Snowball Earth (Dr Ross Mitchell, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing).
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Environmental tipping points during supercontinent breakup (Dr Andrew Merdith, University of Adelaide, Australia).
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Drivers of global riverine suspended sediment fluxes in a warming world (Dr Julian Leyland and Steve Darby, Thea Hincks, Southampton).
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Earth and Moon impact flux over geologic time (Dr Bill Bottke, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), USA).
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Tectonic forcing of global chemical weathering in the Phanerozoic (Prof Eelco Rohling, ANU Canberra).
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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.
