Maya Gomes

About

Maya Gomes is an Associate Professor in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Her primary research interest is the use of sulfur isotope and other geochemical records to reconstruct the coupled biogeochemical cycling of sulfur, carbon, and oxygen across important Earth-life transitions over the course of Earth history. She employs both modern and ancient perspectives by studying modern lakes, microbial mats, and coastal environments as natural experimental systems to explore how sulfur isotope and other geochemical signals record chemical, biological, and physical information in sediments. Her work involves applying these findings to the geological record to investigate how the sulfur cycle interacts with other biogeochemical cycles such as carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, and iron, to regulate Earth's surface oxygen levels during the early evolution of life and during major climate perturbations and extinction events in the Phanerozoic era.

Research topics

• Geology
• Ecology
• Oceanography
• Biology
• Environmental chemistry
• Environmental science
• Paleontology
• Chemistry
• Inorganic chemistry
• Geochemistry

Selected publications

• The history of Earth’s sulfur cycle

  Nature Reviews Earth & Environment · 2024-12-04 · 46 citations

  reviewOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cycling of W and Mo species in natural sulfidic waters and their sorption mechanisms on MnO2 and implications for paired W and Mo records as a redox proxy

  Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta · 2020 · 27 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Redox-sensitive trace metal concentration patterns have been widely used to track redox conditions in aquatic environments. Among redox-sensitive trace metals, molybdenum (Mo) is of interest owing to its speciation behavior and associated changes in particle reactivity that cause significant changes in concentration patterns in oxic versus sulfidic conditions. However, current understanding of how to use Mo geochemistry of marine sediments as a paleoredox proxy is limited to determining presence…

  DOI

• Contrasting controls on seasonal and spatial distribution of marine cable bacteria (<i>Candidatus Electrothrix</i>) and Beggiatoaceae in seasonally hypoxic Chesapeake Bay

  Limnology and Oceanography · 2022 · 23 citations

  Abstract Marine cable bacteria ( Candidatus Electrothrix ) and large colorless sulfur‐oxidizing bacteria (e.g., Beggiatoaceae) are widespread thiotrophs in coastal environments but may exert different influences on biogeochemical cycling. Yet, the factors governing their niche partitioning remain poorly understood. To map their distribution and evaluate their growth constraints in a natural setting, we examined surface sediments across seasons at two sites with contrasting levels of seasonal oxy…

  DOI

• Microbial diversity and abundance vary along salinity, oxygen, and particle size gradients in the Chesapeake Bay

  Environmental Microbiology · 2024-01-01 · 21 citations

  articleOpen access

  Marine snow and other particles are abundant in estuaries, where they drive biogeochemical transformations and elemental transport. Particles range in size, thereby providing a corresponding gradient of habitats for marine microorganisms. We used standard normalized amplicon sequencing, verified with microscopy, to characterize taxon-specific microbial abundances, (cells per litre of water and per milligrams of particles), across six particle size classes, ranging from 0.2 to 500 μm, along the m…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Taphonomy of Biosignatures in Microbial Mats on Little Ambergris Cay, Turks and Caicos Islands

  Frontiers in Earth Science · 2020 · 21 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Microbial mats are taxonomically and metabolically diverse microbial ecosystems, with a characteristic layering that reflects vertical gradients in light and oxygen availability. Silicified microbial mats in Proterozoic carbonate successions are generally interpreted in terms of the surficial, mat building community. However, information about biodiversity in the once-surface-layer can be lost through decay as the mats accrete. To better understand how information about surface microbial communi…

  DOI

Frequent coauthors

• Elizabeth J. Trower

  University of Colorado Boulder

  50 shared

• Andrew H. Knoll

  Harvard University

  48 shared

• Marjorie Cantine

  Goethe University Frankfurt

  47 shared

• J. P. Grotzinger

  California Institute of Technology

  44 shared

• Usha F. Lingappa

  California Institute of Technology

  44 shared

• Woodward W. Fischer

  California Institute of Technology

  43 shared

• N. Stein

  Epirus Biopharmaceuticals (United States)

  42 shared

• John D. Naviaux

  37 shared

Similar researchers at Johns Hopkins University

• Julie K. Lundquisth-82
• Darryn Waughh-81
• Dimitri Sverjenskyh-70