MacArthur Basin, Australia

The ca. 1.64 Ga Barney Creek Formation (Macarthur Basin, northern Australia) hosts the oldest unambiguously indigenous biomarker hydrocarbons and offers us the earliest molecular glimpse into a variably sulfidic ecosystem. Together with postdoc Benjamin Bruisten (who's dissertation principally focused on this organic rich unit) and Jochen Brocks (ANU) we study a variety of aspects, including carbon cycle mechanistics, nutrient cycling across different facies zones and the molecular paleoecology of early eukaryotes. In 2015 we visited the Barney Creek Formation in the field (Northern Territories of Australia) to obtain a better understanding of it's regional geology and sedimentology, followed by a systematic sampling party at the NTGS in Darwin.

Matt Schmitz (PhD student at FSU Jena) enjoying a day on the beach (top). The legendary Barney Creek Formation in outcrop (right) and in close-up (below).

Enough cores to keep us busy for a while! Benni Bruisten (top) and Matt Schmitz (below).

These guys (left) make sure that field work in the Northern Territories stays exciting.