Nicholas A. O’Mara

I am an organic and isotope geochemist interested in what controls changes in rainfall, fire, winds, and ecosystem structures on time scales of hundreds to millions of years. To probe these questions I study the organic and inorganic geochemistry of marine sediment cores to reconstruct how nearby terrestrial environments have varied under different climatic conditions in the past. The bulk of my research focuses on grassy African savanna ecosystems where highly seasonal rainfall facilitates large and frequent fires. My postdoctoral research at Yale is centered on improving our understanding of how climate, fire, and vegetation in these systems interact and how these interactions may have varied across large climatic transitions.