Clara BlättlerAssistant Professor

Research Focus:

isotope geochemistry

Email:

cblattler@uchicago.edu

Office:

Hinds 321

Biography

I received my AB in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Harvard in 2008 and my DPhil in Earth Sciences from the University of Oxford in 2012. I was then a postdoctoral fellow and associate at Princeton University from 2012 to 2018, where I was a Simons Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and an Agouron Institute Postdoctoral Fellow. In the fall of 2018 I joined the Department of the Geophysical Sciences.

Research Interests

I seek to understand the processes that shape the Earth's surface and marine environments and how changes in these processes have affected Earth history.  I use geochemical and isotopic tools to explore connections between the oceans, sediments, the rock cycle, and the climate system.  My work involves samples of many different ages (Archean through Recent) and from a broad range of locations and environments.  In particular, my research focuses on the sedimentary archives of carbonates (limestones and dolomites) and evaporites — these components of the geological record represent our primary means of understanding the ancient carbon cycle and seawater chemistry.

Selected Publications

Blättler, C.L., Claire, M.W., Prave, A.R., Kirsimäe, K., Higgins, J.A., Medvedev, P.V., Romashkin, A.E., Rychanchik, D.V., Zerkle, A.L., Paiste, K., Kreitsmann, T., Millar, I.L., Hayles, J.A., Bao, H., Turchyn, A.V., Warke, M.R., Lepland, A., 2018. Two-billion-year-old evaporites capture Earth’s great oxidation. Science 360, 320–323. doi:10.1126/science.aar2687.

Blättler, C.L., Higgins, J.A., 2017. Testing Urey’s carbonate–silicate cycle using the calcium isotopic composition of sedimentary carbonates. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 479, 241–251. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2017.09.033.

Blättler, C.L., Kump, L.R., Fischer, W.W., Paris, G., Kasbohm, J.J., Higgins, J.A., 2017. Constraints on ocean carbonate chemistry and pCO2 in the Archaean and Palaeoproterozoic. Nature Geoscience 10, 41–45. doi:10.1038/ngeo2844.

Blättler, C.L., Miller, N.R., Higgins, J.A., 2015. Mg and Ca isotope signatures of authigenic dolomite in siliceous deep-sea sediments. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 419, 32-42. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2015.03.006.