Research Projects

• Glacial temperatures of southern mid-latitudes

• Pahnke & Sachs (2006) Sea surface temperatures of southern middle-latitudes 0-160 ky BP, Paleoceanography Vol. 21: PA2003, doi:10.1029/2005PA001191
• Sachs & Anderson (2003) Fidelity of alkenone paleotemperature reconstructions in southern Cape Basin sediment drifts Paleoceanography Vol. 18(4): 1082
• Stenni et al. (2003) Earth and Planetary Science Letters Vol. 217: 183-195
• Sachs et al. (2001) Science Vol. 293: 2077-2079

• Developing the D/H ratio of algal lipids as salinity and water isotopic indicators
• Culture studies (freshwater & marine)
• Batch cultures:  Video of culturing procedure by Zhaohui Zhang (a large 617 MB file!)

Inside of batch culturing chamber

• Continuous cultures
• Field Studies:  Christmas Island, Chesapeake Bay

• Zhang & Sachs (2007) Hydrogen isotope fractionation in freshwater algae:  I. Variations among lipids and species, Organic Geochemistry Vol. 38: 582-608.
• Englebrecht & Sachs (2005) Determination of sediment provenance at drift sites using hydrogen isotopes and unsaturation ratios in alkenones, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta Vol. 69(17): 4253-4265

• Expression of Heinrich Events in the Southern Hemisphere

• Sachs & Anderson (2005) Increased Subantarctic ocean productivity during Heinrich Events, Nature Vol. 434: 1118-1121
• Sachs (2005) Quaternary Science Reviews Vol. 24(16-17): 1779-1780

• Tropical Pacific Climate & Hydrology Since the Last Glacial Maximum
• Paleohydrologic reconstructions from molecular & isotopic  changes in tropical Pacific lake, bog & ocean sediments
• Galapagos
• Kiribati-Northern Line Islands:  Christmas (Kiritimati) & Washington (Teraina) Islands
• Palau
• Panama Basin
  
• El Nino variations since the last glacial maximum
• SST reconstructions from alkenones in Eastern Equatorial Pacific sediments [1][2]

• Pahnke, K., J.P. Sachs, L.D. Keigwin, A. Timmermann, S.-P. Xie (subm.) Eastern tropical Pacific hydrologic changes during the past 27,000 years from D/H ratios in alkenones, Paleoceanography.
• Zhang, Z., P. Metzger, P., J.P. Sachs (in press) Biomarker evidence for the co-occurrence of three races (A, B and L) of Botryococcus braunii in El Junco Lake, Galápagos,  Organic Geochemistry.
• Saenger et al. (2006) A Physico-chemical survey of inland lakes and saline ponds: Christmas Island (Kiritimati) and Washington (Teraina) Islands, Republic of Kiribati Saline Systems Vol. 2(1): 8 
• Sachs & Smittenberg (2005) EAPSpeaks, MIT-EAPS Newsletter Vol. 1(1)
• Koutavas et al. (2002) Science Vol. 297: 226-230

• Holocene climate of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean
• Cooling of the slopewaters east of the US & Canada

• Sachs (2007) Cooling of Northwest Atlantic slope waters during the Holocene, Geophysical Research Letters Vol. 34: L03609, doi: 10.1029/2006GL028495.
• Keigwin et al. (2005) Paleoceanography Vol. 20: PA2003, doi:10.1029/2004PA001074
• Keigwin et al. (2003) Climate Dynamics Vol. 21(1): 53-62

• The origin of fine particles in sediment drifts
• Biomarker D/H & sediment 231Pa/230Th at the Bermuda Rise
• • Englebrecht & Sachs (2005) Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta Vol. 69(17): 4253-4265

People

Julian Sachs - Principal Investigator

 Orest Kawka - Lab Manager / Research Scientist II

Dirk Sachse - Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow

Valerie Schwab - Swiss NSF Postdoctoral Fellow

 Matthieu Carre - JISAO Postdoctoral Fellow

 Amy Cash - Graduate Student

Undergraduate Researchers

Jeffrey Bowman
Brittany Demianew
Carie Frantz
Evan Howard
Brittany Kimball
Daniel Luksic
Jen Nomura

Recent Alumni

Rienk Smittenberg - Comer Postdoctoral Fellow

Katharina Pahnke - Comer Postdoctoral Fellow

Zhaohui Zhang - Comer Postdoctoral Fellow

Jessie Kneeland - Graduate Student

Casey Saenger - Graduate Student

Tools & Techniques

-Molecular fossils (biomarkers)

Molecular D/H, 13C/12C, 15N/14N

Isotope-Ratio-Monitoring Gas Chromatography - Mass Spectrometry (irmGC-MS)

High-Performance Liquid Chromatography - Mass Spectrometry (HPLC-MS) 

Gas Chromatography - Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS)

Gas Chromatography - FlameIonization Detection (GC-FID)

High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)