Assistant Professor Dan Ibarra, undergraduate alumnus Jonah Bernstein-Schalet, former Postdoctoral Researcher Evan Ramos, and graduate student Sebastian Munoz are coauthors on a recent publication in JGR Biogeosciences. Their research looks into CO2 emissions from headwater streams, comparing chemical signatures of river water samples taken from an Oregon watershed with both very steep and very shallow-sloping rivers. "Results from this study may impact our estimates of how rivers move carbon across the earth's surface and exchange carbon dioxide with the atmosphere."

A new publication in G3 led by Assistant Professor Emily H. G. Cooperdock untangles the systematics of uranium enrichment for serpentinites from different tectonic settings and explores potential mineral hosts. The researchers found that "uranium enrichment is most common in the upper 100m of the seafloor and is not correlated with degree of serpentinization. We also find a correlation between U concentration and iron-oxidation, which we use to suggest that U is hosted in ferric iron minerals, possibly iron-oxides." The paper also provides insights on using uranium as a tracer for tectonic setting, fluid rock interactions, and redox records in the solid Earth system.

From freshly formed simple craters on the Moon to hydrogen sulfide production in the Salton Sea, DEEPS undergraduate students participated in cutting edge research throughout the 2025 summer break. We are proud to showcase some of these research projects with this photo series.

DEEPS Shorts is a video series highlighting the diverse research within Brown’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences. This week, we hear from Justin Custado, a Geochemist studying weathering and climate history in the Philippines. Created by PhD Candidate Élise Beaudin, with support from Communications Specialist Mae Jackson.

In a new study published in Icarus, a team of researchers led by DEEPS graduate student Thomas Williams and Professors Stephen Parman and Alberto Saal have used modern analysis techniques to closely examine the microscopic mineral deposits on the outside of lunar beads from the Apollo mission. The team's findings suggest a change in eruption style over the course of a pyroclastic volcanic eruption in the Taurus-Littrow Valley.

In a new Science Advances publication, Assistant Professor James Dottin III demonstrates how Hydrogen may leak from the core into the lowermost mantle, become entrained in mantle plumes, and mix into the upper mantle. "We typically think about the water cycle on the surface," explained Dottin, "but we often don't consider what happens to water beneath our feet through deep Earth processes." By measuring 2H/1H ratios in olivine-hosted basaltic melt inclusions from a Baffin Island lava, Dottin and his team investigated whether mantle plumes contain Hydrogen from the core. "This means that some the the water you're drinking today might be seeing the surface for the first time since the Earth was formed."

A team of six DEEPS researchers (including Ewerton Santos, Bumsoo Kim, Rafael Tarozo, Sarah McGrath, Marcelo Alexandre, and Professor Yongsong Huang) recently published an article in "Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry" presenting a new reactor system that greatly outperforms the conventional reactor system in efficiency, precision, and accuracy.

Brown University's Ibarra Lab recently helped verify a meteorite that landed in a Pennsylvania resident's ice cream.

Ice sheet melt has been shown to increase volcanic activity in subglacial volcanoes elsewhere on the globe. DEEPS PhD candidate Allie Coonin and her team ran 4,000 computer simulations to study how ice sheet loss affects Antarctica’s buried volcanoes, and they found that gradual melt could increase the number and size of subglacial eruptions.

A team of Brown University students participated for the first time in the USDA Northeast Collegiate Soil Judging Competition.

This summer, DEEPS Assistant Professor Emily H. G. Cooperdock, graduate student Anahi Carrera, and Columbia University Professor Steven L. Goldstein visited the island of Unalaska to collect samples that will help interpret data from a 2015 NSF GeoPRISMS campaign, as well as pave the way for future research.

Brown's Initiative for Sustainable Energy recently announced Seed Research Awards for 2024-2025, including Assistant Professor Dan Ibarra for his project, “Investigating Mineralogical, Geochemical, & Thermodynamic Mechanisms Governing Lithium Enrichment in Lake Clay Deposits.”

Gabriel Traietti ‘25, concentrating in Geochemistry, investigates the terrestrial paleoclimate of the Congo River Basin in Senior Associate Dean James Russell’s lab. He emphasizes how DEEPS gave him the tools to explore his passion for reconstructing ancient climate to help anticipate the effects of climate change on a local level.

Assistant Professor Dan Ibarra and his team have published a special outreach article in in PAGES Horizons highlighting their cave monitoring efforts in the Philippines. Ibarra said, "it is exciting to share our efforts to develop this work in multiple cave systems in the Philippines over the last several years." The work is led by former Voss Postdoc Natasha Sekhon, co-authored by Celia Kong-Johnson, Justin Custado, Carlos CP David, Mónica Geraldes Vega, and many others, and made possible with support from the National Cave and Karst Research Institute and the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES).

Research Matters, hosted by the Graduate School, is an annual live event featuring short talks by Brown graduate students on why their research matters. DEEPS graduate student Alexia Rojas presented on her research, "Lead Absorption in Zeolites and Community Science."

Professor Tim Herbert commented on new research in Science, saying “The dance of global temperature is primarily not called by ice, but more likely by [carbon dioxide]."

DEEPS Professor Timothy D. Herbert spoke with Times Evoke about sea sediments, uncovering secrets of ancient Earth and climate change.

Assistant Professor Emily Cooperdock and colleagues have published new research on uranium isotopes in serpentinite rocks found both underwater and on land. The team discovered that the uranium isotope ratios in submarine serpentinites are influenced by seafloor weathering and differ from seawater ratios. Overall, the results show exciting evidence that U-isotopes can be used to measure recent weathering of ultramafic serpentinites. The findings also caution against using these systems as indicators of ancient geological events.

Assistant Professor James W. Dottin III is featured on a recent episode of PBS's science documentary series, NOVA. In the episode, "Ancient Earth: Birth of the Sky," scientists explore the creation of Earth's atmosphere and our familiar blue sky.

Jim Russell, Senior Associate Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, has been elected as a Geological Society of America Fellow. Society Fellowship is an honor in recognition of a sustained record of distinguished contributions to the geosciences.

A new U.S. Geological Survey reports that the world has enough rare earth minerals and other critical raw materials to switch from fossil fuels. “There are enough materials in reserves. The analysis is robust and this study debunks those (running out of minerals) concerns,” said DEEPS Assistant Professor Daniel Ibarra, who wasn’t part of the study but looks at lithium shortages.

Assistant Professor Dan Ibarra was featured on the popular educational YouTube channel, "Every Rock Has a Story". 

Sharp fronts and eddies that are ubiquitous in the world ocean, as well as features such as shelf seas and under-ice-shelf cavities, are not captured in climate projections. Such small-scale processes can play a key role in how the large-scale ocean and cryosphere evolve under climate change, posing a challenge to climate models.

The field of seismology is entering a new era where our understanding of earthquakes and the solid earth is increasingly driven by new Big Data experiments and algorithms.

Composition of air bubbles can help scientists date Antarctica’s ice caps