The Bryant Lab is equipped with state-of-the-art IC, Q-ICP-MS, MC-ICP-MS and laser ablation systems. These instruments allow us to tackle almost any science problem related to stable isotopes (e.g., sulfur, calcium, magnesium, strontium, boron, uranium) and major and trace elements. Areas of particular interest include:
- Reconstructing past changes in sulfur metabolism (in microbial communities, and within fossil eukaryotes) using sulfur isotopes.
- Investigating fossilization pathways (e.g., the Burgess Shale-type soft body preservation pathway) using sedimentary geochemistry.
- Tracing the oxygenation of Earth’s surface through geologic time (particularly around the GOE), using redox proxies (e.g., sulfur and carbon isotopes, and many more…).
- Early Earth and Mars analog studies – seeking to understand the conditions under which life may have originated by studying putative similar environments on modern-day Earth, such as alkaline and hypersaline lakes on the Cariboo Plateau, BC, Canada.
- Deconvolving primary from post-depositional influences on carbon and sulfur isotopic excursions, e.g. across the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
- Understanding environmental instability around mass extinctions – using geochemistry to map out environmental dynamics related to the onset of and recovery from mass extinctions (e.g., across the Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary).
- Reconstructing ocean pH through geologic time and across environmental perturbations, using new and existing pH proxies.
The Bryant Lab 