Alan Channing Home

Hot Spring environments and ecosystems

Grand Prismatic hot spring - Yellowstone NP Wyoming

My research broadly focuses on hot spring ecosystems and how they become fossilised. My early research career centered on investigations of active hot springs in Yellowstone National Park where I studied the process of silicification in higher-plants. During this work it became apparent that in active hot spring areas plants are most commonly preserved in wetlands that surround most thermal areas.

During the following years my work investigated these wetland areas, their plants and animals, geochemistry and fossilisation processes. Currently I am searching for fossil examples of geothermal wetlands in the 150 million year old volcanic rocks of the Deseado Massif, Argentine Patagonia.