Cesca Mcinerney
Medicine
University of Adelaide
Australia
Biography
Dr. McInerney’s research focuses on reading isotopic signatures from the rock record to understand the influence of past climate change on ancient ecosystems. She is interested in how plant communities and terrestrial biogeochemical cycles reacted to periods of global warming in the geologic past as a potential analogue to future climate change impacts. Specifically, she analyzes the stable isotopic composition of fossilized plants and their preserved leaf waxes to reconstruct past climates and ecosystems. These leaf waxes are essentially molecular fossils that can retain information for millions of years about the plants that made them and the environments they lived in. In order to interpret these ancient chemical signatures, McInerney also studies modern plants and soils as a means of calibrating the isotopic tools she applies to the geologic record.
Research Interest
Medicine,Medical Education,Research,etc
