The Melbourne University Isotope Geochemistry group was established in the mid 90’s by Janet Hergt and Jon Woodhead. We have grown a great deal over the years and now constitute a major research team within the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (formerly the School of Earth Sciences). We have 8 academic staff and typically 5-10 PhD and several Master/Honours students at any given time. We publish around 30 peer-reviewed papers per year, and provide analytical services to a wide array of academic and industry partners both within Australia and overseas.
Meet the team...
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For friends of #otoliths, and good old-fashioned #Sr-isotopes - our new paper just out in Oecologia: https://t.co/fnnxOuwFHs
Dr John Hellstrom
ARC Future Fellow, U-series analysis, Palaeoclimate
Dr Kale Sniderman
Postdoctoral Fellow, Speleothem Palynology
Our current and most recent students and their projects (chronological):
Current students
Tim Pollard, PhD joint with Geography: speleothem records of climate and environmental change during the Marine Isotope Stage 11 interglacial
Bianca Dickson, PhD: Speleothem palynology
Jurgen Herrmann, PhD: Opal formation and geochemistry
Maddison Crombie, PhD: Composition of Australian Ochres
Recent students
Damien Finch, PhD: Elemental characterisation of Kimberley rock art
Rieneke Weij, PhD: speleothem proxies for palaeoprecipitation
John Engel, PhD: Further development of the U-Pb in speleothem chronometer
Candan Desem, PhD: Investigating Pb isotopic soil compositions at the national scale
Safana Sellman, joint with Geography, PhD: High-resolution speleothem records of Pliocene climate (graduated 2020)
Angus Fitzpayne, PhD: MARID metasomatism in the mantle (graduated 2019)
Jan Tympel, PhD: Geochemical studies of Archaean magmatism (graduated 2019)
Kieran Iles, PhD: Isotopic disequilibrium effects during granite petrogenesis, (graduated 2017)
Andrea Columbu, joint with Geography, PhD: The potential of carbonate speleothems from Mediterranean gypsum caves for palaeoclimate reconstruction (graduated 2017)
Anzu Ikei, MPhil: Petrogenesis of back arc basin basalts (graduated 2017)
Tzu-Ying Kuo, PhD:Trace element and isotopic investigations of altered ocean crust (graduated 2017)
Petra Bajo, PhD joint with Geography: Geochemical investigations of Corchia speleothems: Implications for past climate change (graduated 2016)
Estephany Marillo Sialer, PhD: Investigation of 'matrix effects' during laser ablation ICPMS analysis (graduated 2016)
Xiaowen Gu, MSc: Geochronology and petrogenesis of West Australian lamproites (graduated 2016)
John Engel, MSc: Investigation of the Pb-step leaching method for garnet geochronology (graduated 2015)
Dr Helen Green, PhD: Palaeoclimatic potential of speleothems from S.E. Australia (graduated 2014)
Dr Matthew Felgate, PhD: Age and origin of Brazilian kimberlites (graduated 2014)
Candan Desem, Hons: Pb and Sr isotope investigations of groundwater around the Century Mine (graduated 2014)