Connecting Geochemical Cycles
My work encompasses a wide spectrum of topics but aims to ultimately connect geochemical cycles and budgets to the microbiological agents involved and, ultimately, to the rock record.
Much of my research involves studies of chemical fluxes to the sea floor and across this boundary. Here one can "stand" and look upward to study how chemicals are transported into the overlying ocean and thereby impacting its chemistry, and one can look downward and interpret diagenetic reactions as they ultimately impact the sedimentary rock record. I like to look both ways.
My students and I work in the field and lab on the projects listed here. I have many ongoing collaborations and consider the strength of the USC Geobiology program to be its collegiality, complementary skills among the faculty and their quantitative rigor. My lab combines standard inorganic chemical analytical facilities with some novel instrumentation including NOx Box, MIMS, microfluidics experimental systems, microbial respirometers, and a benchtop environmental SEM with EDS. Field work includes study sites: Walker Lake, NV, Yellowstone Hot Springs, coastal ocean sediments and the low oxygen zone. My work in the rock record includes studies of Pleistocene carbonates, Eocene carbonates and Miocene Monterey Formation rocks.
I have been a director of the International GeoBiology Summer Course since 2002 and firmly believe that it has had a profound impact on the growth and development of this field. The Berelson lab is also a member of the USC Geobiology Group - one of the most extensive geobiology programs in the world. Learn more at the Geobiology website. 
