{"id":177731,"date":"2021-10-04T08:00:47","date_gmt":"2021-10-04T12:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=177731"},"modified":"2021-10-04T11:45:27","modified_gmt":"2021-10-04T15:45:27","slug":"tracy-frank-studies-earths-climate-through-ancient-rocks-with-an-eye-to-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2021\/10\/tracy-frank-studies-earths-climate-through-ancient-rocks-with-an-eye-to-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracy Frank Studies Earth\u2019s Climate through Ancient Rocks, with an Eye to the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

This semester, Tracy Frank, a\u00a0geologist\u00a0and\u00a0geochemist, became the second department head\u00a0of\u00a0the Department of\u00a0Geosciences\u00a0since its founding two years ago.\u00a0Prior to that, the department was a research institute bringing together researchers from across the University.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After traveling to diverse climates\u00a0like\u00a0Antarctica and Australia,\u00a0and working as an adjunct professor in\u00a0Earth and atmospheric sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Frank joined UConn this year as a department head and professor of the geosciences program.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, she shares what studying ancient climates can teach modern humans about our impact on the environment,\u00a0and the future of climate change.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is geoscience,\u00a0and what do geoscientists do?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is a discipline that draws from the other sciences to study the\u00a0planet.\u00a0You\u00a0can combine it with chemistry like me, or with physics\u00a0to\u00a0study\u00a0geophysics,\u00a0the internal structures of the earth, or you can combine it with biology to study paleontology.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are a number of different things\u00a0geoscientists\u00a0work on.\u00a0<\/span>The geosciences have gotten a bit of a bad rap because many people associate it with only working in oil and gas. In fact, geoscientists study a broad range of topics, such as climate change, energy security<\/span>,\u00a0natural resources and sustainability, water availability, and\u00a0preventing\u00a0natural hazards that geoscientists work on.\u00a0Geoscientists\u00a0work in a wide range of settings. Some spend a lot of time outside, or travelling. It’s a great career if you\u2019re into\u00a0travelling.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, some work in\u00a0cities, in\u00a0businesses,\u00a0or\u00a0in laboratory settings, while\u00a0some design complex software that can\u00a0model climate or\u00a0image the subsurface of the earth in 3D.\u00a0There are many things we do,\u00a0ranging from field work to high-tech stuff.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tell us about your research as a geoscientist.\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most people are familiar with the catastrophic asteroid event that wiped out the dinosaurs\u00a0around 66 million\u00a0years\u00a0ago. Fewer people may know about\u00a0another\u00a0mass extinction caused by volcanoes spewing carbon dioxide into the Earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/span>\u00a0This\u00a0event,\u00a0<\/span>known as the end-Permian\u00a0extinction<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0wiped\u00a0out\u00a090 percent of life in the oceans and 70 percent on land.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If we can look back at history and see what the extremes are of the\u00a0Earth\u2019s system, what causes the planet to tilt from one extreme to the other, we can better predict what might be in our future.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I study the sedimentary record to try and understand earth\u2019s surface environment and climates of the deep past \u2013billions of years ago\u2014and how they change over time. I’m\u00a0particularly\u00a0interested in understanding the consequences of major\u00a0catastrophes\u00a0in the\u00a0Earth\u2019s history, such as mass extinctions that led to major loss of life, and how these mass extinctions\u00a0coincide\u00a0with rapid climate change\u00a0and spikes in greenhouse gases.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My students\u00a0and\u00a0I go to field\u00a0sites\u00a0all over the world and study samples of the rocks\u00a0that preserve a record of\u00a0particular events. Then we use our lab to generate\u00a0geochemical\u00a0profiles \u2013 we use stable isotopes\u00a0and\u00a0elemental analyses, and they can give us signals that help us reconstruct what happened.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How do you see\u00a0geosciences being important over the next 10 years?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The geosciences have always been important, because they are critical to supplying us with natural resources and also understanding how the\u00a0planet\u00a0we live on operates. Geologists were the first climate scientists, the first to realize that Earth\u2019s climate has changed through time, with several major climate catastrophes recorded in the rock record.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Geosciences, taught with an\u00a0Earth system perspective that draws on other core STEM disciplines, is increasingly important as humanity faces critical issues related to climate change.\u00a0It is also critical that non-scientists have a better understanding of how the earth operates.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One way of improving understanding is through education on the impacts that human activities have on the planet, and the significance for society. For example, the department recently introduced a new 1000-level course called \u201cThe Human Epoch: Living in the Anthropocene,\u201d which focuses on human activities as agents of geologic change and resulting effects such as climate change, sustainability, mass extinction, land use, and waste disposal. This step towards teaching Earth processes in\u00a0the\u00a0context of the human epoch is a unique approach, and one that is needed to attract and prepare the geoscientists of tomorrow.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How are geoscientists uniquely equipped to work on climate change and the environment?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Geoscientists consider the earth as a system, controlled by interactions between the hydrosphere, lithosphere (solid earth), biosphere, and the atmosphere.\u00a0We\u00a0approach\u00a0such\u00a0problems by testing hypotheses against observations of the natural world, often comparing modern processes with those recorded in the rock record. Geoscientists understand the interconnectedness of the different components of the\u00a0Earth\u2019s systems and how sensitive they are to perturbations.\u00a0Any perturbation to one component of the system will have effects\u00a0on the others. For example, a major driver of climate change today is related to extraction of fossil fuels, formed over millennia and then stored in the subsurface for millions of years, and their rapid release into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What core scientific skills do students gain studying geosciences?\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Students receive an in-depth education about the components of the\u00a0Earth system and how they are interconnected,\u00a0drawing on an array of scientific skills tied to different STEM fields. Understanding the rock record can inform us about how the\u00a0Earth has changed through time, how quickly those changes have occurred, and why, is fundamental.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Many geoscientists do field work,\u00a0exploring for\u00a0certain resources, creating maps of the underlying bedrock, or studying outcrops to learn what they can tell us about past environments and life on earth. Many others work in laboratories as geochemists or geophysicists. Some are paleontologists. Others create or use complex computer software to model components of the earth system, such as climate, or to image the subsurface.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Geosciences Department aims to produce students who can think critically and creatively in ways that will help them to adapt and apply their knowledge to solve future problems.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Under the guidance of a new department head, UConn’s geosciences program aims to teach Earth sciences in the context of the Human Epoch, preparing tomorrow’s geoscientists to solve future problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":177738,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2214],"class_list":["post-177731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 09:44:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177737,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177731\/revisions\/177737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/177738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177731"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=177731"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=177731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}