Adam and Fai publish papers in Fall 2025

Congrats to Adam Stone and Fai Chanchai for publishing their first papers!! 

Adam's paper in The Planetary Science Journal explored the weathering of phosphorus from the seafloor! Adam used thermodynamic models to determine how basalt lithology can impact how much P is released through seafloor water-rock interactions on ocean-covered exoplanets. We find that, based on star composition, we expect a large number of potential ocean-covered exoplanets should have sufficient P to support a biosphere.

Fai's paper in Geobiology compared three (yes, three) carbonate paleo-redox proxies to determine if there's clear evidence for local or global changes in dissolved oxygen levels in the ocean during the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary, about 540 million years ago. Surprisingly, records from two different sites from western North America do not indicate the carbon isotope excursion at this boundary coincided with global or long-lived oxygenation. This paper is a culmination of a lot of hard work in the lab and with always finicky instruments, as well as a healthy dose of pandemic delays. Lots of further questions about the role of oxygen in reflecting, or controlling, patterns of evolution and extinction during this time!