Principal research interests: ‘deep time’ climate change and the reconstruction of Cenozoic vegetation using the plant megafloral record. Key research areas:

1. Western Canadian and Arctic Cenozoic fossil floras.
2. The paleontological proxy record of past climate (i.e. deep time paleoclimatology).
3. The response of forest communities and plant taxa during global warm climate intervals in pre-Quaternary time.

I use plant fossils, such as fossilised leaves, to reconstruct environments of the geological past, especially the Eocene Epoch (55 to 37 million years ago), when natural events had produced a period of global warming – climate change in the geological past is referred to as ‘deep time’ climate change. I am particularly interested to understand how forest ecosystems responded to past periods of climate change.

In the early ‘90s while based at the University of Saskatchewan, I worked on the world famous fossil forests of the Canadian High Arctic, on Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere Islands. These fossil forests show that during the warm Eocene times that the poles were ice-free and that biologically rich and highly productive forests composed of dawn redwoods, pines, cedars, ginkgo, birch, elms, oaks, and many other trees grew near the north pole. Crocodiles and other tropical animals were also found in the Arctic at this time, and throughout western Canada.

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