Dr. Paul Olsen

Arthur D. Storke Memorial Professor, Biology and Paleo Environment, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), Columbia Climate School
206D Geoscience 61 Route 9W PO Box 1000 Palisades, NY 10964

BIOGRAPHY:

The evolution of continental ecosystems (including their external and internal controls and their biological and physical components) is my overall area of research. I am especially interested in the pattern, causes and effects of climate change on geological time scales, mass extinctions, and the effects of evolutionary innovations on global biogeochemical cycles.

In recent years my students and I have engaged in multidisciplinary projects including: drilling and recovering more than 20,000 feet of core from Triassic lake deposits in New Jersey to understand the influence of variations of the earth's orbit on tropical climate, detailed analysis of the great mass extinction 200 million years ago that set the stage for the dominance of the dinosaurs, excavations at major fossil vertebrate sites throughout eastern North America and Morocco, and the evolutionary processes mediating global carbon cycling.

My approach is to use whatever techniques are available to understand ancient earth's biological and physical systems, and consequently, students involved in these areas have used a broad range of disciplines including structural geology, palynology, geochemistry, geophysics and paleontology.

PROJECTS

Only select projects listed below

Name	Start Date	End Date
Collaborative Research: Filling the Triassic geochronologic gap: A continuous cored record of continental environmental change in western North America	9/15/13	8/31/18
Leveraging the Geologic Record to Constrain Solar System Evolution, Earth-Moon Dynamics, Paleoclimate Change, and Geological Time	6/1/21	5/31/22
Collaborative Proposal: RAPID: Opportunity to Acquire Continuous, High-resolution Geochemical Proxies for Paleoclimate, Paleoenvironment, and Modern Hydrogeology from CPCP Cores	5/20/22	6/30/24

50 PUBLICATIONS ON COLUMBIA | ACADEMIC COMMONS

Only select publications listed below

Name	Published Date
Arctic ice and the ecological rise of the dinosaurs	2022
A Late Permian paleopole from the Ikakern Formation (Argana basin, Morocco) and the configuration of Pangea	2021
LA-ICPMS U-Pb geochronology of detrital zircon grains from the Coconino, Moenkopi, and Chinle Formations in the Petrified Forest National Park (Arizona)	2020
Reservoir and sealing properties of the Newark rift basin formations: Implications for carbon sequestration	2020
U-Pb zircon geochronology and depositional age models for the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation (Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, USA): implications for Late Triassic paleoecological and paleoenvironmental change	2020
Magnetochronology of the Entire Chinle Formation (Norian Age) in a Scientific Drill Core From Petrified Forest National Park (Arizona, USA) and Implications for Regional and Global Correlations in the Late Triassic	2019
Mapping solar system chaos with the Geological Orrery	2019
Colorado Plateau Coring Project, Phase I (CPCP-I): A continuously cored, globally exportable chronology of Triassic continental environmental change from Western North America	2018
Empirical evidence for stability of the 405-kiloyear Jupiter-Venus eccentricity cycle over hundreds of millions of years	2018
Astrochronostratigraphic polarity time scale (APTS) for the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic from continental sediments and correlation with standard marine stages	2017
New insights into lithology and hydrogeology of the northern Newark Rift Basin	2016
New Insights on Rift Basin Development and the Geological Carbon Cycle, Mass Extinction, and Carbon Sequestration...	2016
Revised Stratigraphy of Late Triassic Age Strata of the Dan River Basin (Virginia and North Carolina, USA) Based on Drill Core and Outcrop Data	2015
Zircon U-Pb Geochronology Links the End-Triassic Extinction with the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province	2013
Diverse New Microvertebrate Assemblage from the Upper Triassic Cumnock Formation, Sanford Subbasin, North Carolina, USA	2012
Rapid emplacement of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province as a net sink for CO2	2012
Climatically driven biogeographic provinces of Late Triassic tropical Pangea	2011
Implications of the Newark Supergroup-based astrochronology and geomagnetic polarity time scale (Newark-APTS) for the tempo and mode of the early diversification of the Dinosauria	2011
Potential on-shore and off-shore reservoirs for CO2 sequestration in Central Atlantic magmatic province basalts	2010
Rhaetian magneto-biostratigraphy from the Southern Alps (Italy): Constraints on Triassic chronology	2010
Site Selected for Colorado Plateau Coring: Colorado Plateau Coring Project Workshop, Phase 2: 100 Million Years of Climatic, Tectonic, and Biotic Evolution From Continental Coring . . .	2010
The Colorado Plateau Coring Project (CPCP): 100 Million Years of Earth System History	2010
Climatic, Tectonic, and Biotic Evolution in Continental Cores: Colorado Plateau Coring Project Workshop; St. George, Utah, 13-16 November 2007	2008
CPCP: Colorado Plateau Coring Project — 100 Million Years of Early Mesozoic Climatic, Tectonic, and Biotic Evolution of an Epicontinental Basin Complex	2008
Early Jurassic magnetostratigraphy and paleolatitudes from the Hartford continental rift basin (eastern North America) . . .	2008
Spectral Analysis of the Lower Eocene Wilkins Peak Member, Green River Formation, Wyoming: Support for Milankovitch Cyclicity	2008
Synchrony between the Central Atlantic magmatic province and the Triassic-Jurassic mass-extinction event? Reply to Marzoli et al.	2008
Synchrony between the Central Atlantic magmatic province and the Triassic-Jurassic mass-extinction event?	2007
Eocene Calibration of Geomagnetic Polarity Time Scale Reevaluated: Evidence from the Green River Formation of Wyoming	2004
Tethyan magnetostratigraphy from Pizzo Mondello (Sicily) and correlation to the Late Triassic Newark astrochronological polarity time scale	2004
Chronology and stratigraphy of the Fundy and related Nova Scotia offshore basins and Morocco based on core and outcrop	2003
Cyclo-, Magneto-, and Bio-Stratigraphic Constraints on the Duration of the CAMP Event and its Relationship to the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary	2003
Response to Comment on "Ascent of Dinosaurs Linked to an Iridium Anomaly at the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary"	2003
Ascent of Dinosaurs Linked to an Iridium Anomaly at the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary	2002
Continental Triassic-Jurassic Boundary in Central Pangea: Recent Progress and Discussion of an Ir Anomaly	2002
High-resolution early Mesozoic Pangean climatic transect in lacustrine environments	2000
Implications of a comparison of the stratigraphy and depositional environments of the Argana (Morocco) and Fundy (Nova Scotia, Canada) Permian-Jurassic basins	2000
Implications of astronomical climate cycles to the chronology of the Triassic	2000
Magnetic polarity stratigraphy and paleolatitude of the Triassic-Jurassic Blomidon Formation in the Fundy basin (Canada): implications for early Mesozoic tropical climate gradients	2000
Astronomically tuned geomagnetic polarity timescale for the Late Triassic	1999
Long-period Milankovitch cycles from the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic of eastern North America . . .	1999
Paleomagnetism of Upper Triassic continental sedimentary rocks from the Dan River—Danville rift basin (eastern North America)	1997
High-resolution stratigraphy of the Newark rift basin (early Mesozoic, eastern North America)	1996
Milankovitch climate forcing in the tropics of Pangaea during the Late Triassic	1996
Late Triassic-earliest Jurassic geomagnetic polarity reference sequence from cyclic continental sediments of the Newark rift basin	1995
Late Triassic-earliest Jurassic geomagnetic polarity sequence and paleolatitudes from drill cores in the Newark rift basin, eastern North America	1995
Well Logging Results from the Newark Rift Basin Coring Project	1994
Magnetostratigraphy and paleomagnetic poles from Late Triassic-earliest Jurassic strata of the Newark basin: Discussion and reply	1993
Magnetostratigraphy and paleomagnetic poles from Late Triassic-earliest Jurassic strata of the Newark basin	1991
Continental Coring of the Newark Rift	1990

Staff and Affiliates Directory

Dr. Paul Olsen

PROJECTS

50 PUBLICATIONS ON COLUMBIA | ACADEMIC COMMONS