Ongoing projects in this laboratory include:

1) Isolation of cyanobacteria from natural microbial mat for lipid biomarker characterization.

2) Use of compound specific isotope analysis (CSIA) to determine the effect of carbon isotope discrimination on the C13/C12 ratio of cyanobacterial biomarkers.

3) Use of pure culture experiments to determine the effect of environmental conditions on the abundance and carbon isotopic composition of biomarkers.

4) Application of biomarker analysis and CSIA to characterization of lipid biomarkers in microbial mats.