Bruce W. Fouke, Department of Geology, Department of Microbiology, and Institute for Genomic Biology
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Systems Geobiology is the study of how micro-scale geological, biological, physical and chemical interactions respond to and control macro-scale environmental processes and the deposition of sedimentary rocks. This research requires the cross-disciplinary integration of reductionist and whole-system approaches, combined with coupled field and laboratory experimentation, to make predictive linkages from mechanism to pattern across broad scales of space and time.
Terrestrial and marine hot springs have emerged as experimental test beds in which sedimentary and geochemical environmental processes have been integrated with knowledge of microbial diversity and metabolism derived from recombinant DNA biotechnology. Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park is unique in that strategic cross-disciplinary parameterization of hot-spring travertine (CaCO3)–water–microbe systems has been linked with a process-based sedimentary depositional facies model for paleoenvironmental and paleobiological reconstructions. Results have identified microbial influences on carbonate rock fabric, isotopic geochemistry and precipitation rate that are applicable to understanding feedback interactions between biotic growth and activity, mineral precipitation dynamics and rapid environmental change in other modern and ancient geological settings.
The Colloquium will be on Thursday 12 November at 4 p.m., in SSN 190
Bruce W. Fouke, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geology, the Department of Microbiology, and the Institute of Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Professor Fouke studies complex interactions between planet Earth and the many forms of life that inhabit it. His ongoing work includes analyses of: (1) the bacteriology of coral disease; (2) microbe-mineral interactions in hot springs; (3) the last flow of water in Roman aqueducts; and (4) meteor cratering associated with the demise of the dinosaurs. Professor Fouke received his Ph.D. from the State University of New York Stony Brook, and completed postdoctoral research appointments at the Free University of Amsterdam, the University of California Berkeley, and NASA Ames Research Center prior to arriving at Illinois. Professor Fouke recently received a Fellowship in the University of Illinois Center for Advanced Studies, and his work has been highlighted in National Geographic Magazine as well as on National Public Radio. He currently serves on science panels at the National Science Foundation, NASA and the Department of Energy.
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