Staff Profile

A geologist by training, Jonathan is interested in using the geochemistry of marine, lake and terrestrial sediments to reconstruct palaeoenvironmental change throughout the Cenozoic Era.  

Areas of Interest

Organic geochemistry, isotope geochemistry (stable and rare-earth element), NE Atlantic palaeoclimate and palaeoceanography, Icelandic geology, sedimentology, stratigraphy and argon geochronology. 

Positions

Nov 2021 - Present    Postdoctoral Research Associate in Organic Geochemistry, Newcastle University

Jan 2021 - Oct 2021    Postdoctoral Research Associate in Organic Geochemistry, University of Birmingham

Education

2016 - 2021    PhD Earth Sciences, University of Birmingham (NERC funded)

2012 - 2016    MGeol Geology, University of Leicester 

Waves of colonisation around the Sea of Moyle

AHRC funded PDRA researching the onset and climatic drivers of human colonisation (Dál Riata, Vikings etc.) across the Sea of Moyle region during the last 3000 years, using biomarkers (faecal sterols, bile acids, alkenones and GDGTs) preserved in lake sediments sampled from six Scottish and Irish islands, including Rathlin and Lismore. 

Reducing Greenhouse Climate Proxy Uncertainty

NERC funded PDRA compiling biomarker (isoprenoid GDGT) records from deep marine sediments to reconstruct global sea surface temperatures during the last 150 million years. I then processed these data in MATLAB using OPTiMAL, a new machine learning approach for GDGT-based palaeothermometry, to assess whether the isoprenoid assemblages used in modern core-top calibrations provide an adequate framework to predict ancient sea surface temperatures. 

Reconstructing Pliocene climatic, oceanic and tectonic interactions in the NE Atlantic, Nordic Seas and onshore Iceland by geochemical fingerprinting of marine and terrestrial sediments

NERC funded PhD investigating palaeoclimatic and palaeoceanographic change in the NE Atlantic, Nordic Seas and onshore Iceland throughout the Pliocene Epoch (5.33−2.58 Ma) using the geochemistry of marine and terrestrial sediments. Utilised a wide range of laboratory techniques to extract and analyse organic biomarkers (alkenones, iso-GDGTs, br-GDGTs), stable isotopes and rare-earth elements, including GC-FID, GC-MS, HPLC-MS, ICP-MS, MS and pyrolysis. Undertook two months of fieldwork in northern Iceland, mapping, logging and sampling brown coals from the Tjörnes Beds for biomarker analysis.