Hana Jurikova
Hana Jurikova is a Senior Research Fellow and Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of St Andrews, which she joined in 2020 after completing her PhD at GEOMAR Kiel in 2018, followed by a short postdoctoral position at the GFZ in Potsdam between 2018-2020. Hana’s research primarily focuses on advancing the understanding of past CO₂, climate, and seawater chemistry. Her work contributed to extending the boron isotope proxy to the rock record, enabling robust pH and CO₂ reconstructions for the past 500 million years of Earth's history. Hana’s early achievements have been recognized by the prestigious Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award from the EGU and Lyell Fund Award from the Geological Society of London.
Taking Palaeoceanography to the Phanerozoic
Palaeoceanography, as we know it today, is intrinsically liked to the exploration and drilling of deep-sea sediments. Proxy-based reconstructions derived from foraminifera tests have been instrumental in shaping our understanding of the evolution of oceanographic regimes and global climate throughout the Cenozoic. To look further back into Earth’s history, an alternative archive is needed, as seafloor sediments are lost to subduction and foraminifera do not preserve well in terrestrial successions. In the Phanerozoic rock record, brachiopods rival the foraminifera archive in abundance, diversity, and preservation potential owing to their low-magnesium calcite shells. Veizer et al. (1999)’s iconic early carbon, oxygen and strontium isotope records demonstrated the promise of the brachiopod archive. However, questions remain as to whether their quality could match that of foraminifera records, and whether they would be suitable for the application of more sensitive proxies, such as boron isotopes. In this talk, I will summarise recent advances in the application of geochemical proxies to brachiopods and make the case that brachiopod shells provide a robust archive for extending palaeoceanographic and palaeoclimatic reconstructions throughout the Phanerozoic. By showcasing new Palaeozoic and Mesozoic carbon, oxygen, strontium and boron isotope records, I will examine the role of CO2 in driving Earth's major climate transitions and mass extinction events.
