Yongsong Huang

About

Yongsong Huang is a Professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental & Planetary Sciences at Brown University. He received his B.S. in Geochemistry from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1984, his M.S. in Analytical Chemistry from Sichuan University in 1987, a Ph.D. in Geochemistry from the Institute of Geochemistry/Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1990, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Organic Geochemistry from the University of Bristol, UK in 1997. Prior to his tenure at Brown, he worked as a Postdoctoral researcher at Penn State and served as a Guest Investigator at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. His research interests include Earth History, Environmental Science, Geochemistry, Oceans, Ice and Atmospheres, and Planetary Geoscience. His recent work involves Organic Geochemistry, Stable Isotopes, Earth History, and Astrobiology, contributing to understanding the origins of life and planetary processes.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Climatology
• Oceanography
• Geology
• Biology

Selected publications

• Abundant ammonia and nitrogen-rich soluble organic matter in samples from asteroid (101955) Bennu

  Nature Astronomy · 2025-01-29 · 112 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Organic matter in meteorites reveals clues about early Solar System chemistry and the origin of molecules important to life, but terrestrial exposure complicates interpretation. Samples returned from the B-type asteroid Bennu by the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer mission enabled us to study pristine carbonaceous astromaterial without uncontrolled exposure to Earth’s biosphere. Here we show that Bennu samples are volatile rich, w…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Group 2i Isochrysidales produce characteristic alkenones reflecting sea ice distribution

  Nature Communications · 2021 · 76 citations

  is a powerful proxy for reconstructing sea ice conditions in the high latitude oceans on thousand- and, potentially, on million-year timescales.

  DOI

• Climate change facilitated the early colonization of the Azores Archipelago during medieval times

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2021-10-04 · 75 citations

  articleOpen access

  Common Era (CE), ca. 700 y earlier than historical records suggest the onset of Portuguese settlement of the islands. Settlement proceeded in three phases, during which human pressure on the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems grew steadily (i.e., through livestock introductions, logging, and fire), resulting in irreversible changes. Our climate models suggest that the initial colonization at the end of the early Middle Ages (500 to 900 CE) occurred in conjunction with anomalous northeasterly win…

  PublisherDOI

• Pleistocene Sunda Shelf submersion-exposure cycles initiate vegetation Walker Circulation feedback

  Geology · 2023-08-24 · 14 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Recent research has found that the subsiding Sunda Shelf (Southeast Asia) was permanently exposed prior to ca. 400 ka with initial submersion-exposure cyclicity, associated with interglacial-glacial sea-level cycles, beginning between 400 and 240 ka. We analyzed the impact submersion-exposure cycles on regional environment and climate through a 640 k.y. leaf-wax carbon isotope (δ13Cwax) reconstruction at Andaman Sea Site U1448, representing relative changes in C3/C4 plant abundances. Pr…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Interlaboratory Comparison of Branched GDGT Temperature and pH Proxies Using Soils and Lipid Extracts

  Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems · 2024-07-01 · 13 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Ratios of glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGT), which are membrane lipids of bacteria and archaea, are at the base of several paleoenvironmental proxies. They are frequently applied to soils as well as lake‐ and marine sediments to generate records of past temperature and soil pH. To derive meaningful environmental information from these reconstructions, high analytical reproducibility is required. Based on submitted results by 39 laboratories from across the world, which employ…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Reconciling conflicting Arctic temperature and fire reconstructions using multi-proxy records from lake sediments north of the Brooks Range, Alaska

  NSF · $556k · 2015–2018

• Collaborative Research: Multiproxy Archives of Late Holocene Climate Variability from Ombrotrophic Peatlands in Eastern North America

  NSF · $71k · 2004–2007

• EAGER: Collaborative Research: A Critical Examination on the Climatic and Environmental Factors Controlling the H isotopic Fractionation Between Plant Leaf Waxes and Precipitation

  NSF · $32k · 2010–2012

Frequent coauthors

• Yuan Yao

  Zhejiang University of Technology

  164 shared

• James M. Russell

  Brown University

  106 shared

• Jiaju Zhao

  101 shared

• Linda Amaral‐Zettler

  University of Amsterdam

  97 shared

• Richard S. Vachula

  Auburn University

  84 shared

• W. M. Longo

  Macalester College

  69 shared

• Steven C. Clemens

  Brown University

  58 shared

• Juzhi Hou

  Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research

  58 shared

Labs

• Yongsong Huang LabPI

Education

• Ph.D., Organic Chemistry

  University of Bristol

  1997

Similar researchers at Brown University

• John Mustardh-126
• Ralph Millikenh-92
• Tim Herberth-66