Ian Jarvis

Biography

"I completed my doctorate in the Department of Geology and Wolfson College at the University of Oxford in 1980. I have worked as a lecturer at Glasgow University, a post-doctoral researcher at City of London Polytechnic, and a research scientist at the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, specialising in sedimentary geology and geochemistry. Since moving to Kingston in 1984, I have developed research on sedimentary processes in the ocean and their relation to past global environmental change. A particular focus is the Greenhouse World of the Cretaceous Period, 66-145 million years ago. Can the past be the key to the future? I work with collaborators in the UK, Canada, continental Europe, Tunisia and the USA. I am a member of the International Subcommission on Cretaceous Stratigraphy. My research is funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council and industry, and I work as a consultant to the petroleum industry."

Research Interest

My research focuses on sedimentary processes in epicontinental seas and the deep ocean, and their relation to global environmental change. Topics include the use of Cretaceous pelagic carbonates as palaeoenvironmental archives, the utility of dinoflagellate cysts as stratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental tools, the origin of phosphorites and other marine authigenic minerals, and the mechanisms and history of turbidite deposition in the Atlantic Ocean. The stable-isotope and elemental chemostratigraphic frameworks being developed have direct applications for high-resolution correlation in petroleum basins.