Franco Marcantonio
  • Professor and Jane and Ken R. Williams ’45 Chair in Ocean Drilling Science, Technology and Education
  • Radiogenic isotope geochemistry
  • Geochemical proxies of climate change
  • Environmental geochemistry
Research Areas
  • Ancient Life & Environments
  • Environmental & Engineering Geology & Geophysics
  • The Earth System & Other Planetary Bodies

Research Interests

Currently I am pursuing several areas of research, all of which involve isotope ratio variations in marine and terrestrial records.  My focus is on how isotope and trace element tracers can be used to understand the relationship between past climate change (mainly on Quaternary timescales) and past oceanic biological productivity, deep-ocean circulation, and patterns of continental aridity and hydrology based on past riverine discharge and eolian fluxes to the ocean. Understanding climate forcing and response mechanisms will help address a critical problem faced by climatologists.  We have direct observational data on the chemical and physical parameters of the ocean for only about the past 50-100 years. In order to understand the impact of large-scale anthropogenic release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and because the ocean plays such an important role in the global carbon cycle, we need to have empirical evidence from sedimentary proxies in order to understand better climate-related atmospheric/oceanic processes.

Research Themes:

  • Radiogenic isotope geochemistry
  • Geochemical proxies of climate change
  • Environmental geochemistry

Research Websites

Educational Background

  • PhD, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, 1994
  • MSc, Geology, McMaster University, 1988
  • BSc, Chemistry and Geology, with honors, Carleton University, 1986

Selected Publications

  • Loveley, M. R.*, Marcantonio, F., Lyle, M., Ibrahim, R.*, Hertzberg, J. E., Schmidt, M. W. (2017) Sediment redistribution and grainsize effects on 230Th-normalized mass accumulation rates and focusing factors in the Panama Basin, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 480, 107-120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2017.09.046. 

  • Loveley, M. R.*, Marcantonio, F., Wisler, M. M.*, Hertzberg, J. E., Schmidt, M. W., and Lyle, M. (2017) Millennial-scale iron fertilization of the eastern equatorial Pacific over the past 100,000 years, Nature Geoscience, https://doi.org/10.1038/NGEO3024.

  • Roark, A., Flake, R., Grossman, E. L., Olszewski, T., Lebold, J., Thomas, D. J., Marcantonio, F., Miller, B. V., Raymond, A., Yancey, T. (2017) Brachiopod geochemical records from across the Carboniferous seas of North America: Evidence for salinity gradients, stratification, and circulation patters, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatologoy, Palaeoecology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2017.06.009.

  • Costa, K. M., McManus, J. F., Anderson, R. F., Ren, H., Sigman, D. M., Winckler, G., Fleisher, M., Marcantonio, F., and Ravelo, A. C. (2016) No iron fertilization in the Equatorial Pacific during the Last Ice Age, Nature 529, 519-522.

  • Winkler, G., Anderson, R. A., Jaccard, S., and Marcantonio, F. (2016) Ocean dynamics, not dust, control equatorial Pacific productivity over the past 500 kyr, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113, 6119-6124.

  • Reimi, M.* and Marcantonio, F. (2016) Constraints on the Magnitude of the Deglacial Migration of the ITCZ in the Central Equatorial Pacific Ocean, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 453, 1-8.

  • Hertzberg, J. E., Schmidt, M. W., Bianchi, T. S., Smith, R. K., Shields, M. R., Marcantonio, F. (2016) Comparison of eastern tropical Pacific TEX86 and Globigerinoides ruber Mg/Ca derived sea surface temperatures: Insights from the Holocene and Last Glacial Maximum, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 434, 320-332.

  • Berg, M. D., Marcantonio, F., Allison, M. A., McAlister, J., Wilcox, B. P., and Fox, W. E. (2016) Contrasting watershed-scale trends in runoff and sediment yield complicate rangeland water resources planning, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, doi:10.5194/hess-2015-540.

  • Kirman, Z. D.*, Sericano, J. L., Wade, T. L., Bianchi, T. S., Marcantonio, F., and Kolker, A. S. (2016) Composition and depth distribution of hydrocarbons in Barataria Bay marsh sediments after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Environmental Pollution, 214, 101-113.

  • Lopez, G. I.*, Marcantonio, F., Lyle, M., and Lynch-Stieglitz, J. (2015) Dissolved and Particulate 230Th-232Th in the Central Equatorial Pacific Ocean: Evidence for Far-Field Transport of the East Pacific Rise Hydrothermal Plume, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 431, 87-95.

  • Hannah, A. J. M., Allison, M. A., Bianchi, T. S., Marcantonio, F., and Goff, J. (2014) Late Holocene Sedimentation in a High Arctic Coastal Setting: Simpson Lagoon and Colville Delta, Alaska, Estuarine and Coastal Shelf Science, 74, 11-24.

  • Xie, R. C.*, Marcantonio F., and Schmidt, M . W. (2014) Reconstruction of intermediate water circulation in the tropical North Atlantic during the last deglaciation, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, DOI: 10.1016/j.gca.2014.05.041.

  • Lyle, M., Marcantonio, F., Moore, W. S., Murray, R. W., Huh, C.-A., Finney, B. P., Murray, D. W., and Mix, A. C. (2014) Sediment size fractionation and focusing in the Equatorial Pacific: effect on 230Th normalization and paleoflux measurements, Paleoceanography, DOI: 10.1002/2014PA002616.

  • Marcantonio, F., Lyle, M., and Ibrahim, R.* (2014) Particle sorting during sediment redistribution processes and the effect on 230Th-normalized mass accumulation rates, Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/2014GL060477.