Micropaleontology Lab

We prepare and analyze foraminiferal samples for faunal composition, stable isotopes, and radiocarbon dating. Equipment includes sieves, binocular microscopes, identification books, a reference slide collection, and more. Our data help reconstruct past marine and glacio-marine environments.

Photo of Anne Jennings

Anne Jennings
Director

Photo of John Andrews

John Andrews
Emeritus fellow

Photo of Isaac Leb

Isaac Leb
Undergrad student

 

  • Ursula Quillmann, PhD 2014
  • Mariah Walton, MS, ATOC, 2010
  • Christina Sheldon, MS, Geological Sciences, 2010

 

Contact

Anne Jennings Lab room: SEEC S173

Click an image to zoom & see caption

Anne Jennings looks at a computer screen showing a sieved sediment sample as seen in microscope view
Mariah Walton, in blue overalls, cleans a split core on a research cruise off the coast of West Greenland, 2009. Photo by Ursula Quillmann.
Ursula Quillmann counts forams with a microscope in the Micropaleontology Lab

 

 

What 25-million-year-old ocean sediment can teach us about our planet’s future

Anne Jennings wears a puffy jacket and stands in front of the JOIDES Resolution drilling ship in August, 2023  (Credit: Philip Staudigel)

Image: Anne Jennings in front of the JOIDES Resolution ship before they left for Greenland in August, 2023 (Credit: Philip Staudigel). Click to zoom.

Anne Jennings and her colleagues spent two months on a ship off the coast of Greenland drilling sediment cores deep below the ocean floor. They were searching for clues that will help predict melting patterns of major ice sheets in our warming world.

Read the CU Boulder Today article

 

 

Example project - Studying past climates and ice shelf history of Petermann Glacier and Nares Strait, northwestern Greenland

In the summer of 2015, we spent a month aboard the Swedish icebreaker ship Oden to collect marine sediment cores from Petermann Fjord and northern Nares Strait, a gateway between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. We processed the cores in a lab on board ship to start reading the history of past climates and ice shelves. Intensive followup work by ourselves and colleagues took place over subsequent years in multiple labs, including the INSTAAR Micropaleontology Lab.

Blog
Read about our 2015 shipboard research in a blog post entitled ""

Map from a publication on modern foraminiferal assemblages in northern Nares Strait, Petermann Fjord, and beneath Petermann ice tongue, NW Greenland

Click to zoom. Map from a publication on modern foraminiferal assemblages in northern Nares Strait, Petermann Fjord, and beneath Petermann ice tongue, NW Greenland

Project publications
We've authored and contributed to a number of publications about the northwest Greenland region based on this project. Here are examples:

Project video
See Anne Jennings on 60 Minutes in the 2016 video below. She talks about forams and sediments that hold clues to Petermann Glacier's past. The video discusses both land and marine research. The marine section starts at the 7-minute mark; Anne appears at the 9.5-minute mark.

 

Publications

See .

Publications for Jennings are included below.  Andrews is a co-author on many of them.