- Planetary Atmospheres and Climate; The Coupled Evolution of
- Evolution of the Earth's Atmosphere and the Co-evolution of Life
- Involvement with NASA's
missions to the planet Mars :
Dept. of Earth and Space Sciences,
Some Taught Courses, since 2002
University of Washington
Box 351310, Seattle WA 98195-1310
- Principal Investigator for NASA Exobiology
project: Evolution of Oxygen Atmospheres on Habitable Planets with
to Life Detection and Advanced Life.
- Co-Investigator for NASA Mars Data Analysis project: Condensate
Clouds on Mars from Mars
- Principal Investigator for NASA Mars Data Analysis project:
Wind Processes and the Evolution
of the Martian Surface Using Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey Data.
- Principal Investigator for NASA Planetary
Geology and Geophysics project: Aqueous Chemical Modeling of
on Early Mars with Application to Surface-Atmosphere Evolution.
- Co-Investigator on NASA Planetary Geology and Geophysics
Geochemical Models for Cold Planets
- Co-Investigator on Matador
(Mars Atmosphere and Dust in the Optical and Radio). We
compared the physics of dust devils on Earth with their larger
on Mars. To the right is a photo of one the dust devils our team saw
the small town of Eloy, AZ, between Phoenix and Tucson.
We measured dust devils using a mobile platform instrumented with wind,
temperature, pressure, sound, electric field, and radio sensors.
- Co-investigator on Phoenix,
a Mars Lander (shown right), which was NASA's first Mars
Scout Program, mission, which landed in 2008. Phoenix investigated
volatiles (especially water), habitability, and climate at a
site on Mars where NASA's Mars
Odyssey orbiter discovered evidence of ice in the soil.
- In collaboration with Roger
Buick, I have also studied extreme climate swings at the
(250 million years ago) when the largest mass extinction in animal
occurred. We inferred drastic climate change using carbon isotope data
from the Blue Mountains, near Sydney, Australia.
To the right is my view of Govett's Leap in the
in 2001. Triassic sandstone overlies Permian coal, with the boundary
at the tree line near the base of the waterfall. Charles Darwin looked
out upon this very same scene in 1836.
"Jan 18, 1836: Very early in the morning, I walked
about three miles
to see Govett's Leap...These valleys...are most remarkable. Great
bays...penetrate the sandstone platform; on the other hand, the
often sends promontories into the valleys, and even leaves in them
almost insulated, masses."
- C. R. Darwin, Chapter 19, The
Voyage of the Beagle.
- Co-Investigator on the Pascal
Mission, a proposed NASA mission to place a network of 24
stations on Mars that monitor its climate for up to 10 Mars years (19
years). Pascal was selected by NASA for pre-study in 2001.
Along with Prof.
Jim Kasting from Penn State University, I'm (still) writing the
book, aimed at graduate students and researchers:
on Inhabited and Lifeless Worlds,
Cambridge University Press, to be published.
See my Publications
- SO WHAT IS ASTROBIOLOGY ANYWAY? The UW
Astrobiology Program allows
graduate students to take courses and do some research outside their
discipline to broaden their scientific horizons. Astrobiology seeks to
address three basic questions: (1) What's the history of life? (2)
the future of life? (3) Is there life elsewhere? Today's atmosphere and
biosphere are coupled chemical systems because all the important gases
CO2, etc.) with the sole exception of
are biologically mediated to some degree. There is still fundamental
to be done: there is no theory of "atmospheric composition" as such.
on the chemical history of the atmosphere bears on the origin and
of life on Earth, as well as the future of life. It is also linked to
question of life elsewhere.