Integrated Stratigraphic and Paleoenvironmental Study of the Middle-Late Devonian Carbonate to Black Shale Transition in the Michigan Basin

Professor Jay Zambito is leading a project that aims to decipher carbon cycle and sedimentological changes that occurred during the Middle-Late Devonian (~375 million years ago) as a result of global climate change. This project is part of the Keck Geology Consortium, and summer research positions are tailored to rising seniors that plan to use the data they collect for their geology senior theses.

Devonian climate trends have long been studied within the context of biological change. For example, the End-Devonian glaciation is typically thought to be related to CO2-drawdown due to the evolution of forests during the Middle-Late Devonian. However, more recent paleoclimate reconstructions indicate that the Devonian climate story is more complex. In order to better understand these long-term patterns, a current focus within the Devonian research community is the study of the repeated, short-duration, globally-recognized events that resulted in marine anoxia, extinctions, and carbon-cycle perturbations. This project is focused on recognizing these events, and reconstructing the environmental change associated with them, in the Middle through Late Devonian strata of the Michigan Basin.