Supervisor: A/Prof. Simon George, Macquarie University, Sydney

Co-supervisors: Prof. Roger Summons, MIT, USA; Prof. Malcolm Walter, University of New South Wales, Sydney.

The ACA has recently had Australian Research Council funding approved for a five-year project led by Prof. Malcolm Walter on “Oxygenating the Earth: using innovative techniques to resolve the timing of the origin of oxygen-producing photosynthesis in cyanobacteria”. It is almost universally accepted that the oxygenation of the previously anaerobic Earth was driven by the oxygenic photosynthesis of cyanobacteria. But there are inconsistencies of hundreds of millions of years in the various lines of evidence for the timing of the oxygenation process. We aim to resolve these inconsistencies by focusing on the record preserved in the Fortescue Group of West Australia, a remarkably well-preserved set of rocks reliably dated as lying in the disputed time range of the rise to prominence of cyanobacteria.

As part of a team of five internationally well-respected scientists (Malcolm Walter, Brett Neilan, Simon George, Roger Summons and Bill Schopf) and 3 other PhD students, your PhD project will apply new and innovative organic geochemical techniques to the study of the Fortescue Group to critically assess the evidence for the presence of cyanobacteria at 2.7-2.8 Ga. A suite of Fortescue Group rocks, mainly from cores, will be analysed using solvent extraction, fluid inclusion geochemistry and novel pyrolysis methods so as to provide a dataset of molecular geochemical parameters related to the Precambrian organic matter, and especially to the question of presence/absence of cyanobacteria. All techniques used will concentrate on the key issue of proving syngeneity of detected biomarkers. This organic geochemical study will be carried out in close conjunction with the microscopy and Raman imagery techniques and the broader sedimentological study, thus establishing direct links and associations amongst these datasets.

You will gain experience in several organic geochemical techniques, especially to those pertaining to the exciting, topical and controversial techniques for obtaining biomarker evidence from Archaean rocks. You will undertake fieldwork in NW Australia (Pilbara) in order to obtain outcrop material to supplement core material. Macquarie University in Sydney has a new and well-equipped organic geochemistry laboratory. In addition, some analyses will also be carried out at other labs in Australia (e.g. CSIRO) and in the USA (e.g. MIT).

A scholarship paying A$22,500 is available from March 2010 for 3.5 years; the scholarship also covers fees for overseas applicants.

For further information about this project, please contact:
A/Prof. Simon George, Macquarie University:
Simon.George@mq.edu.au                        Telephone: +61-2-9850-4424