Marjorie Cantine

About

Marjorie Cantine is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences with a focus on astrobiology. Her research concentrates on geochemical and physical records of time and environment preserved in sedimentary rocks. She aims to understand how the Earth and life have changed through time, how that history is preserved in rocks, and how post-depositional processes complicate that record. Her work includes geological and laboratory adventures on five continents and contributions to understanding the environmental context in which complex, macroscopic animals emerged on Earth, particularly how this story is captured in carbonate rocks. Additionally, she is passionate about teaching science to talented future first-generation students in Mississippi through the Freedom Summer Collegiate program.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Paleontology
• Biology
• Geology
• Evolutionary biology
• Earth science

Selected publications

• Revisiting Elevated δ ¹³ C Values of Sediment on Modern Carbonate Platforms

  Geophysical Research Letters · 2024-07-31 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract The measured carbon isotopic compositions of carbonate sediments (δ 13 C carb ) on modern platforms are commonly 13 C‐enriched compared to predicted values for minerals forming in isotopic equilibrium with the dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) of modern seawater. This offset undermines the assumption that δ 13 C carb values of analogous facies in the rock record are an accurate archive of information about Earth's global carbon cycle. We present a new data set of the diurnal variation in…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Origins and Alteration of Ediacaran Carbonates Recording the Shuram Excursion in Oman

  Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems · 2025-05-01 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract The Shuram excursion is the largest known negative carbon isotope excursion in Earth's history. Recognized globally, it follows the Ediacaran Gaskiers glaciation and precedes a marked increase in the diversity and complexity of the earliest macroscopic multicellular organisms in the fossil record. A key question is whether this excursion reflects a primary perturbation to the carbon cycle, which would provide crucial insights into the environmental conditions shaping the earliest animal…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How to Make a Rock in 150 Days: Observations of Biofilms Promoting Rapid Beachrock Formation

  Geobiology · 2025-01-01 · 7 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Beachrock is a type of carbonate-cemented rock that forms via rapid cementation in the intertidal zone. Beachrock is a valuable geological tool as an indicator of paleoshorelines and may protect shorelines from erosion. Previous studies present a range of hypotheses about the processes enabling rapid beachrock formation, which span purely physicochemical mechanisms to a significant role for microbially mediated carbonate precipitation. We designed a set of in situ field experiments to explore th…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Rapid growth of a carbonate island over the last millennium

  Sedimentology · 2024-06-06 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Low‐lying islands in tropical regions are vulnerable to near‐term sea‐level rise and hurricane‐induced flooding, with substantial human impact. These risks motivate researchers to elucidate the processes and timescales involved in the formation, growth and stabilization of coastlines through the study of Holocene shoreline dynamics. Little Ambergris Cay (Turks and Caicos Islands) is a low‐lying carbonate island that provides a case study in the nucleation and growth of such islands. Thi…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Spatiotemporal changes in riverine input into the Eocene North Sea revealed by strontium isotope and barium analysis of bivalve shells

  Scientific Reports · 2024-11-20 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Reconstructing hydrological conditions of past warm periods, such as the Eocene ‘hot house’ provides empirical data to compare to state of the art climate models. However, reconstructing these changes in deep time is challenging, for example, given the complex interplay between evapotranspiration, precipitation and runoff. As a proxy for past changes in these hydrological systems, the dynamics of fresh water input into marginal seas can be used to identify the spatiotemporal distributio…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Elizabeth J. Trower

  University of Colorado Boulder

  51 shared

• Andrew H. Knoll

  Harvard University

  51 shared

• Kristin Bergmann

  48 shared

• Woodward W. Fischer

  California Institute of Technology

  48 shared

• Maya Gomes

  Johns Hopkins University

  47 shared

• J. P. Grotzinger

  California Institute of Technology

  46 shared

• N. Stein

  Epirus Biopharmaceuticals (United States)

  44 shared

• Usha F. Lingappa

  California Institute of Technology

  42 shared

Similar researchers at University of Washington

• Roger Buickh-90
• Eric Agolh-88
• Cecilia Bitzh-74