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Julio ³§±ð±èú±ô±¹±ð»å²¹ (INSTAAR Fellow and GEOL Associate Professor) is part of a team of scientists from seven collaborating institutions who were awarded a new research grant that will fund an investigation of the ecological and environmental changes that occurred on land after the asteroid impact and mass extinction event at the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary.

As part of ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä Boulder's annual Research & Innovation Week (October 17–21, 2022), the 2022 Faculty Fellows gave short TED-style talks in the Gordon Gamm Theater at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder. In this talk, Dr. Julio ³§±ð±èú±ô±¹±ð»å²¹ describes the microbes that fill our oceans, the impact of climate change on the ecosystems that depend on those microbes, and his research group’s work to better understand how we can all contribute to protecting our oceans and our planet.

200 students from Angevine Middle School criss-crossed INSTAAR space this morning, engaging in hands-on science activities. Students touched and smelled permafrost, looked at algae through microscopes, tested water pollution in local streams, investigated soil texture, learned about chickadees, and checked out weather and climate measurements in fast-paced, hands-on activities.

Biogeochemist Julio ³§±ð±èú±ô±¹±ð»å²¹ (INSTAAR & GEOL) is one 17 ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä Boulder faculty members selected by the Research and Innovation Office as their 2022 RIO Faculty Fellows cohort. The program supports faculty in achieving their research/innovation goals and promotes collaboration, all through tailored training, experiential learning and leadership development opportunities. ³§±ð±èú±ô±¹±ð»å²¹ and his cohort kick off 2022 with an intensive three-day retreat in January, followed by several more focused retreats and a variety of informal networking activities.

The health of the ocean is fundamental to life on the planet—yet much remains unknown about how the ocean and marine life will cope with a rapidly changing climate. An award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will help Julio ³§±ð±èú±ô±¹±ð»å²¹ start solving that crucial puzzle.

The snowy landscape of the Arctic was greener more than 100,000 years ago and could get there again as the climate warms and plants migrate further north, new research suggests. Plant DNA taken from soil 10 meters below a lake near Clyde River shows dwarf birch shrubs used to grow up to the northernmost point of Baffin Island, according to research led by Sarah Crump, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The samples, more than 100,000 years old, were found in soil and were more intact than samples from permafrost, suggesting they may have remained unfrozen.

Imagine not a white, but a green Arctic, with woody shrubs as far north as the Canadian coast of the Arctic Ocean. This is what the northernmost region of North America looked like about 125,000 years ago, during the last interglacial period, finds new research from ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä Boulder led by Sarah Crump. Researchers analyzed plant DNA more than 100,000 years old retrieved from lake sediment in the Arctic and found evidence of a past ecosystem. As the Arctic warms much faster than everywhere else on the planet in response to climate change, the findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may not only be a glimpse of the past but a snapshot of our potential future.

Millions of years ago, fire swept across the planet, fueled by an oxygen-rich atmosphere in which even wet forests burned, according to new research by new PhD graduate F. Garrett Boudinot and Julio ³§±ð±èú±ô±¹±ð»å²¹. The study, published today in Nature Geoscience, provides geochemical evidence showing that forest fires expanded dramatically, potentially burning up to 30 or 40 percent of global forests during a 100,000 year interval more than 90 million years ago. While today's fires are exacerbated by dry conditions, they found that forest fires during this period increased even in wet regions due to changes in global climate.