Molecular Paleontology

David Gold specializes in molecular paleontology, an area of study that combines geological, genetic and developmental tools to study the early evolution of animal life. A biologist by training, he’s fascinated by the development of life systems over long time scales.

From Magma Deep Beneath Ancient Volcanoes a Hidden Driver of Earth’s Past Climate

An international team of geoscientists led by a volcanologist at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and including Maxwell Rudolph, associate professor in the UC Davis Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, has discovered that, contrary to present scientific understanding, ancient volcanoes continued to spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from deep within the Earth long past their period of eruptions.

In the Seagrass Meadows

Join Elisabeth Sellinger and Mazie Lewis for a day of seagrass meadow monitoring research in Elkhorn Slough. A nursery habitat for many marine animals, including mammals, shellfish and fish, seagrass meadows are vital ecosystems. But their benefits don’t just touch the ocean-dwellers of our planet.

Recent Volcanoes on the Moon?

New results from China’s Chang’e 5 lunar samples returned to Earth provide evidence for active volcanoes on the Moon as recently as 120 million years ago. Previously, scientists had thought that any activity with magma (molten rock) rising to the Moon’s surface ended billions of years ago.

How Can Seagrasses Help Mitigate Climate Change?

At the most recent Davis Science Café, Professor Tessa Hill, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, discussed the rapid changes occurring in the oceans due to human-induced climate change. But a potential solution may reside in the disappearing seagrass beds hugging the California coastline.

A Snapshot of an Eruption

Around 170,000 years ago, the Yellowstone Caldera — a supervolcano — produced a series of small eruptions in frequent pulses lasting roughly 100,000 years. Remnants from those eruptions can be found on the Earth’s surface today as volcanic rock. And those rocks contain critical clues about the interior of the supervolcano.

The Path to Building a Digital Twin of the Earth with Magali Billen

Magali Billen, a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, seeks to unravel the forces that drive plate tectonics from hundreds of kilometers beneath the Earth’s surface. Specifically, she’s interested in subduction zones — areas where two tectonic plates collide, causing one to dive back down into the Earth’s mantle.