• 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)

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

Great Basin

Australia

Nepal

Dominican Republic (coral)

Portugal

Stalagmites as Paleoflood Records

Other Studies