Rhawn Denniston
Rhawn Denniston
William Harmon Norton Professor of Geology
Link to Curriculum Vitae
Academic History
- PhD, Geosciences, University of Iowa, 2000
- MSc, Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of New Mexico, 1995
- BA, Geology, Hamilton College, 1991
Courses (click for syllabus)
- Dynamic Earth (GEO 111).pdf
- Climate Change (GEO 122).pdf
- Hydrogeology (ENV 301/GEO 320)
- Advanced Paleoclimatology (GEO 322).pdf
- Geology of New Zealand (GEO 329).pdf
Faculty-Student Research
List of Student Research Projects
Research Interests
My research primarily involves the use of stalagmites and corals as paleoenvironmental records to investigate the following:
- Reconstructing Australian bushfire from pyrogenic organic compounds in stalagmites
- Glacial and recent evolution of tropical Australian rainfall associated with the Australian monsoon and tropical cyclones
- Hydroclimate variability of western Iberia associated with sea surface temperatures and the North Atlantic Oscillation
- Indian summer monsoon dynamics over recent millennia
- Shifts in Great Basin hydrologic regime across glacial/interglacial time scales
- Vegetation and climate dynamics in the midwestern United States
- El Niño-Southern Oscillation activity in the Miocene and Pliocene "greenhouse worlds"
Selected Publications (click for pdf)
Midwest
- Increased cool season moisture during the middle Holocene at Cold Water Cave, Iowa - Geology (1999).pdf
- Holocene vegetation dynamics across the northern Midwest (Cold Water, Mystery, and Crystal caves) - The Holocene (1999).pdf
- Holocene vegetation change from Missouri and Arkansas caves - Quaternary International (2000).pdf
- Multi-proxy data reveal abrupt Holocene climatic change at 6 ka in Midwest - Global and Planetary Change (Baker et al., 2001).pdf
- Chasing the Holocene prairie-forest ecotone - Paleo^3 (Baker et al., 2002).pdf
- Late Holocene aridity recorded at Devil's Ice Box Cave, Missouri - Quaternary Research (2007).pdf
Great Basin
- A framework for triple oxygen isotopes in speleothem paleoclimatology - Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (Huth, 2021)
- Great Basin paleoclimate and aridity linked to Arctic warming and tropical SST - Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology (Lachniet, 2020)
- D/O events in the Great Basin from Goshute Cave, Nevada - Geology (2007).pdf
- Testing the Devils Hole record - Nature Communications (Lachniet et al., 2014)
Australia
- Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Australian stalagmites as novel paleofire proxy - Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (2024)
- Australian stalagmites as records of prehistoric bushfire - PAGES Magazine (2023)
- Northwest Australian tropical cyclone activity and ITCZ migration since 500 CE - Science Advances (2023)
- Methods for analyzing pyrogenic organic compounds in stalagmites - Analytical Chemistry (2019)
- Late glacial decoupling of monsoon activity across northern and southern Indo-Pacific - Quaternary Science Reviews (2017)
- Expansion and contraction of Indo-Pacific Tropical Rain Belt - Scientific Reports (2016)
- Contribution of tropical cyclones to extreme rain events in Australia - Int J Climatology (2016)
- Cave Flooding, extreme rainfall, tropical cyclones, and ENSO - PNAS (2015)
- Links between the Australian monsoon and North Atlantic climate over the Last Glacial from Ball Gown Cave, Western Australia - Quaternary Science Reviews (2013).pdf
- Last Glacial Maximum - middle Holocene paleoclimates at Cape Range, Western Australia - Quaternary Science Reviews (2013).pdf
- Nature and origin of Holocene Australian monsoon variations from Cave KNI-51, WA - Quaternary Science Reviews (2013).pdf
- Denniston Corrigendum.pdf
Nepal
Dominican Republic (coral)
- Late Miocene SST from pristine fossil corals - Evolutionary Stasis and Change (2008).pdf
- U-Pb dating of a pristine Miocene coral - Geology (2008).pdf
- ENSO-like activity in a Miocene coral - Geology (2017).pdf
Portugal
- Twentieth-century Azores High expansion unprecedented in past 1200 years - Nature Geoscience (Cresswell-Clay, 2022)
- Late Pleistocene landscape and settlement dynamics of Portuguese Estremadura - Journal of Field Archaeology (Haws, 2020)
- Hydroclimate variability from western Iberia (Portugal) during the Holocene - The Holocene (Thatcher, 2020)
- Linking the karst record to atmospheric, precipitation, and vegetation dynamics - Chemical Geology (Thatcher, 2020)
- Millennial-scale climate variability over the last two glacial cycles recorded in Portuguese stalagmites - Climate of the Past (2017)
Stalagmites as Paleoflood Records
- Interpreting historical, botanical, and geological evidence to aid preparations for future floods - WIREs Water (Wilhem, 2018)
- Stalagmites as paleoflood records - Quaternary Science Reviews (2017)
Other Studies
- Evaluating model outputs using integrated global speleothem records of climate change since the last glacial - Climate of the Past (Comas Bru, 2019)
- Permo-Triassic extinction - early Triassic weathering and ecosystem recovery - Geology (Sedlacek, 2014).pdf
- Yucca Mountain (NV) groundwater variations reconstructed using SIMS analysis of REE from fracture calcites - Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (1997).pdf