Erica Barlow
  • About
  • Field Work
    • Geological Mapping
    • Other Field Trips
  • Publications
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About Me

I'm a PhD graduate of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology (ACA) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia. I was awarded my PhD in Geology at the end of 2019 and am pursuing both national and international postdoctoral opportunities in Geobiology and Astrobiology. 
Over the past 10 years, since I started studying in Earth Science, I've had the opportunity to explore many beautiful and interesting places. I love doing field work, but also being in the outdoors in general. Camping, hiking, caving and kayaking are some of my favourite activities. ​

Research

I study ancient fossils, in the form of stromatolites (macroscopic structures built by communities of microorganisms) and microfossils (cellularly-preserved remains of microorganisms), to contribute to our understanding of the type and diversity of life present early on in Earth's history. My research so far has focused on ~2.3 billion-year-old fossiliferous rocks from the Turee Creek Group in the Hamersley Ranges of Western Australia.

I'm particularly interested in:
​- microfossil metabolisms and how these may be related to habitat;
- how Precambrian microfossils became preserved;
​- how biological information may be altered through time;
​- how we better distinguish between physical artefacts and biological structures;
​- how life may have changed as a result of the significant increase in atmospheric oxygen at ~2.4 Ga (a.k.a. the Great Oxidation Event, GOE);
- the apparent increase in microfossil complexity through time; and
- the timing of the emergence of eukaryotes. 


Honours research (2013-2014)
My Honours research involved 4 weeks of remote field work, where I mapped the distribution of various Turee Creek Group units for ~15 km along strike and pieced together the lithostratigraphy. I documented several types of shallow-water stromatolites, including stratiform, domal and columnar (± branching) forms, which I used to reconstruct transgression-regression cycles (relative sea-level change). This work is detailed in my Honours thesis (Barlow, 2014) and a paper in the journal Geobiology (Barlow et al., 2016).  
​
PhD research (2015-2019)
During my PhD, I investigated black chert units from the deeper-water portion of the same Turee Creek Group sequence. Inside the black cherts, I discovered there were numerous microfossil morphologies preserved. Based on cell shape and size, I divided these forms into 19 specific categories, or morphotypes. 

Using field and petrographic observations, I determined that these morphotypes were actually distributed within four distinct microfossil communities, and that these communities could be tied into different habitats within the ancient ecosystem. I also inferred the possible metabolisms of the microfossils using in situ C and S isotopic analyses. 

Two of the microfossil morphotypes are new to science - they have no known counterparts in either older or younger rocks. In addition, a number of forms I've documented are remarkably similar to (but ~400 million-years older than) microfossils described from the well-known ~1.9 Ga Gunflint Iron Formation in Canada. 

​Part of these findings are reported in a second paper in 
Geobiology (Barlow & Van Kranendonk, 2018), while the rest of my work is detailed in my PhD thesis (Barlow, 2019) and in papers in prep. ​

My research has shown that life immediately after the GOE was more complex and diverse than previously thought, highlighting the Turee Creek Group as a substantial new reference point in the sparse fossil record of the early Paleoproterozoic. 


​
I've been generously supported over the years by my supervisor, Prof. Martin Van Kranendonk. 
Erica Barlow

 Funded & supported by:  

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I acknowledge the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first inhabitants of the nation,
​and the traditional custodians of the lands where I live, learn, and conduct field work.


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© Erica Barlow 2020
  • About
  • Field Work
    • Geological Mapping
    • Other Field Trips
  • Publications
  • Contact
  • Other
    • Teaching
    • Grants & Awards
    • Professional Involvement