Speleothems are one of the best terrestrial palaeoclimatic archives, because they can be accurately and precisely dated using U-Th and U-Pb dating techniques. The caves they form in are often associated with important fossil and/or archaeological records, making them invaluable archives to study the impact of past climate and environmental change on evolution. To do so, reliable chronology is fundamental to anchor palaeoclimatic proxies to a timeline. My research involves developing such chronologies using U-Th and U-Pb dating of speleothems. It includes testing and comparing geochronological techniques and understanding geological and palaeoenvironmental processes related to climate change, vertebrate faunal extinctions and human evolution. I am based at the Berkeley Geochronology Center and work with Professor Paul Renne.
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