Dr. Heather L. Jones

Research interests
I am a micropaleontologist specializing in calcareous nannofossil (coccolithophore) paleoecology and biostratigraphy. These small but mighty organisms, are critical components of surface ocean ecosystems, both because they are primary producers that provide a food source to higher trophic levels and because they are one of the main contributors to the marine biological pump.

As coccolithophores produce calcium carbonate plates, they are likely to be particularly sensitive to the ongoing environmental changes caused by anthropogenic carbon emissions. Therefore, to better understand how these organisms might respond to such changes over longer (millennial) timescales, I examine how they were affected by similarly high CO₂ conditions during various different times in Earth's history. This includes immediately after the mass extinction event at the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary ∼66 million years ago, and during the early Eocene (∼52 - 56 million years ago). All of this research relies heavily on sediment core samples recovered during International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) expeditions and its predecessor programs (ODP and DSDP).

Professional Experience

Education

Publications

You can find a list of publications on my Google Scholar page