Yizhou Huang: The recovery of life during the early Triassic: biomarker evidence

The recovery of life during early Triassic, after the late Permian mass extinction, is the longest one among all the mass extinctions. It took ~8 to 9 million years. Even though the mass extinction is intensely studied, the dynamics of this long-term recovery are poorly constrained except the common agreement that the reoccurred environmental disturbances are the dominant causes. Aiming to explore how the organisms recovered and the influence of environmental changes, we focus on the use of molecular fossils (biomarkers) in large-scale profiles, which are extended into the whole early Triassic.

Yan Song: ¹⁸²W study of Pilbara Craton, Western Australia 

The short lived (8.9 Ma half-live) ¹⁸²Hf-¹⁸²W decay system has been developed to be an important tracer for studying the evolution of the early Earth. Positive anomalies of ¹⁸²W isotopic compositions were widely found in Archean terranes, while the reason for this excess ¹⁸²W is still under debate. My project is focused on the analysis of tungsten concentration and their isotope of mantle-derived rocks with ages ranging from 3587 to 3200 Ma in Pilbara Craton, aiming to find the variation and evolution of the W isotope ratios in samples from this single Eoarchean block. 

Zoom link: https://bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/96309344441.