Morgan Schaller
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Morgan Schaller (born 1982) is an American geochemist and geologist specializing in
stable isotope Stable nuclides are Isotope, isotopes of a chemical element whose Nucleon, nucleons are in a configuration that does not permit them the surplus energy required to produce a radioactive emission. The Atomic nucleus, nuclei of such isotopes are no ...
and
fluid inclusion image:Inclumed.gif, 250px, Trapped in a time capsule the same size as the diameter of a human hair, the ore-forming liquid in this inclusion was so hot and contained so much dissolved solids that when it cooled, crystals of halite, sylvite, gypsum, ...
geochemistry, which he uses to reconstruct Earth's ancient atmospheric gas concentrations. He is currently the Edward P. Hamilton Associate Professor of Earth Science at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (; RPI) is a private university, private research university in Troy, New York, United States. It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere. It was establishe ...
, in Troy, NY. Schaller was the 2018 recipient of the F.G. Houtermans Award from the European Association of Geochemistry, which recognizes the exceptional contributions to geochemistry by an early career scientist. Schaller's scholarly works have been cited over 2500 times.


Education

After receiving dual bachelor's degrees from
Binghamton University The State University of New York at Binghamton (Binghamton University or SUNY Binghamton) is a public university, public research university in Binghamton metropolitan area, Greater Binghamton, New York, United States. It is one of the four uni ...
in both Geology and Biology in 2005, he moved to Rutgers for an MS in hydrogeology, and a PhD in geochemistry (2012) with Dennis V. Kent. While at Rutgers, Schaller used sediments from the
Newark Basin The Newark Basin is a sediment-filled rift basin located mainly in northern New Jersey but also stretching into south-eastern Pennsylvania and southern New York. It is part of the system of Eastern North America Rift Basins. Geology Approxim ...
, a Triassic rift lake basin that formed as Pangea broke apart, to estimate the atmospheric CO2 concentration through the
Late Triassic The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch (geology), epoch of the Triassic geologic time scale, Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between annum, Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch a ...
to earliest
Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 143.1 Mya. ...
. Schaller completed postdoctoral research at Yale with Mark Pagani, Brown with Jessica Whiteside, and at the Rutgers Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences with Yair Rosenthal and
Paul Falkowski Paul G. Falkowski (born 1951) is an American biological oceanographer in the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His research work focuses on phytoplankton and primary production, and his ...
before joining the faculty at RPI. Schaller's current interests are broadly in the history of the Earth system and changes in climate over long timescales, with a particular focus on intervals of
mass extinction An extinction event (also known as a mass extinction or biotic crisis) is a widespread and rapid decrease in the biodiversity on Earth. Such an event is identified by a sharp fall in the diversity and abundance of multicellular organisms. It occ ...
or other global-scale perturbations.


Research

Schaller uses light
stable isotopes The term stable isotope has a meaning similar to stable nuclide, but is preferably used when speaking of nuclides of a specific element. Hence, the plural form stable isotopes usually refers to isotopes of the same element. The relative abundan ...
and fluid inclusions to trace the interaction and transfer of elements through the atmosphere, biosphere, and solid earth. He is notable in geochemistry and paleoclimatology as the first to empirically demonstrate the atmospheric CO2 increase due to the eruption of a
Large Igneous Province A large igneous province (LIP) is an extremely large accumulation of igneous rocks, including intrusive ( sills, dikes) and extrusive (lava flows, tephra deposits), arising when magma travels through the crust towards the surface. The format ...
. These proxy observations were made using the soil carbonate paleobarometer on sediments in superposition with the Late
Late Triassic The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch (geology), epoch of the Triassic geologic time scale, Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between annum, Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch a ...
Central Atlantic Magmatic Province The Central Atlantic magmatic province (CAMP) is the Earth's largest continental large igneous province, covering an area of roughly 11 million km2. It is composed mainly of basalt that formed before Pangaea broke up in the Mesozoic Era, near the ...
lavas in the
Newark Basin The Newark Basin is a sediment-filled rift basin located mainly in northern New Jersey but also stretching into south-eastern Pennsylvania and southern New York. It is part of the system of Eastern North America Rift Basins. Geology Approxim ...
. Schaller showed that atmospheric CO2 concentrations doubled after each eruptive pulse of flood basalt volcanism, and subsequently decreased over the next few hundred thousand years due to weathering of the lavas themselves. Schaller is also credited with discovering impact
ejecta Ejecta (; ) are particles ejected from an area. In volcanology, in particular, the term refers to particles including pyroclastic rock, pyroclastic materials (tephra) that came out of a explosive eruption, volcanic explosion and magma eruption v ...
at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary, suggesting that an extraterrestrial impact played a role in the climate event known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). He and colleague Megan Fung were also the first to observe significant and contemporaneous accumulations of charcoal at the beginning of the PETM event from cores through the Paleocene-Eocene interval on the Atlantic Coastal Plain. The charcoal data indicate widespread, intense, and likely synchronous wildfires across the mid-Atlantic region during this period of rapid and intense global warming 56 million years ago.


Awards

* F.G. Houtermans Award from the
European Association of Geochemistry The European Association of Geochemistry (EAG) is a pan-European organization founded to promotes geochemical research. The EAG organizes conferences, meetings and educational courses for geochemists in Europe, including the Goldschmidt Conference w ...
, 2018


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schaller, Morgan 1982 births Living people