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Climate System
Research Center
UMass Amherst,
Department of
Geosciences,
134 Morrill II,
Amherst, MA
01003 - USA
ph: 413.545.0659
fx: 413.545.1200
paleoclimate.org
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Molly Patterson
Postdoctoral scholar
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Advisor: Rob DeConto
I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at UMass working with Dr. Rob DeConto and Dr. Julie Brigham-Grette. My research interests are focused in sedimentology, sequence stratigraphy, marine geology, paleoclimatology and paleoceanography. In a broad context, I am interested in understanding the evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and Southern Ocean since the Neogene (< 23.03 Ma), and trying to assess their roles in climate system processes. The research I carried out during my Ph.D. was focused on understanding the orbital response of the Antarctic Ice Sheet during the Pliocene-Pleistocene and assessing the downstream influence of ice sheet variability on deep ocean circulation and sea level.
Currently, my research focuses on extending a stable isotope (oxygen and carbon) records from deep-sea marine sediments recovered in the southwest Pacific Ocean and assessing the role deep ocean circulation in the Pacific Ocean has had on the development of northern hemisphere glaciation. The southwest Pacific serves as the main entry point for deep waters formed in high latitudes (Northern and Southern) to enter the Pacific Ocean, an important process in the meridional distribution of heat. By integrating this extended southwest Pacific Ocean record with previously established intra and inter-basinal records, a better understanding can be made concerning how major evolutionary events in source regions of deep water, such as coastal regions around Antarctic, influenced deep ocean circulation and ultimately the distribution of heat to lower latitudes as well as higher northern latitudes.
Publications
Patterson, M., McKay, R., Naish, T., Escutia, C., Jimenez-Espejo, F. J., Raymo, M., Meyers, S., Tauxe, L., Benkhuis, H. and IODP Exp. 318 Scientist, 2014, Orbital forcing of the East Antarctic ice sheet during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene: Nature Geoscience, doi:10.1038/ngeo2273.
Cook, C. P., van de Flierdt, T., Williams, T. J., Hemmings, S. R., Iwai, M., Kobayashi, M., Jimenez-Espejo, F. J., Escutia, C., Gonzalez, J. J., Khim, B-K., McKay, R., Passhier, S., Bohaty, S. M., Riesselman, C., Tauxe, L., Sugisaki, S., Galindo, A L., Patterson, M. O., Sangiorgi, F., Pierce, E. L., Brinkhui, H. F., Klaus, A., Fehr, A., Bendle, J. A. P., Bijl, P., and IODP Exp. 318 Scientist, 2013, Dynamic Behaviour of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet during Pliocene Warmth: Nature Geoscience, doi:10.1038/ngeo1889.
Patterson, M. O and Ishman, S. E., 2012, Neogene benthic foraminiferal assemblages and paleoenvironmetal record for McMurdo Sound, Antarctica: Geosphere, v. 8, no. 6, p.1331-1341.
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