Congrats to Tom Boag on thesis defense!

In the lab's second Zoom defense, Tom Boag successfully defended his doctoral thesis on "The role of ecophysiology and paleoenvironmental dynamics in the Ediacaran biostratigraphic record." Tom worked on the paleontology, stratigraphy, geochronology, and carbon isotope chemostratigraphy of Ediacaran successions in the Wernecke Mountains, Yukon and Cariboo Mountains, British Columbia. These studies have refined our understanding of the temporal and environmental appearance of Ediacaran fossils in these successions and in the global record. Moving beyond these traditional geological and paleontological studies, Tom also introduced the lab to physiological methods, and was responsible (with the help of Dr. Leanne Elder and Dr. Celli Hull) for helping us set up the current experimental system that we use today. This work has resulted in new insights into how animals respond to changing oxygen/temperature conditions, both in the ancient past and in future global change. While we are biased, we think this is one of the most exciting new research directions in paleobiology. Tom is now moving on to a post-doc at Yale University, working with Dr. Lidya Tarhan and the great community of Earth historians there--we will miss him!