Courtney Wagner
Biography
My research program aims to delineate the detection and environmental information encoded by magnetofossils, the fossil remains of iron biomineralizing organisms. I pair modern analog studies and paleoenvironmental reconstructions from magnetofossils to decipher how coastal ecosystems are affected by climate change. Much of this work uses magnetofossils preserved in marine sediments that record major warming events from the last ~100 my. I use broadly applicable analytical tools, in combination with multiple proxy data through a network of international collaborations, to determine how magnetofossils record environmental change over these warming events. My work demonstrates how magnetofossils ‘remotely’ assess spatial and temporal changes in ocean chemistry and biodiversity in vulnerable coastal environments. This work is applicable to a wide range of researchers studying climate change and planetary habitability.
Education
B.S. University of Rochester
Publications
- Wagner, C.L., et. al., Giant discovery for magnetofossils bookending Cretaceous Anoxic Event 2. Submitted to: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Wagner, C.L., et. al., Magnetofossils and benthic foraminifera record changes in food supply and deoxygenation of the coastal marine seafloor during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Paleoceanography and Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 37
- Wagner, C.L., et al., Diversification of iron-biomineralizing organisms during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum: Evidence from quantitative unmixing of magnetic signatures of conventional and giant magnetofossils. Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology
- Wagner, C. L., et. al., In situ magnetic identification of giant, needle-shaped magnetofossils in Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum sediments. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Rea-Downing, G., B. Quirk, C. L. Wagner, P.C. Lippert, 2020. Evergreen needle magnetization as a proxy for particulate matter pollution in urban environments. GeoHealth
- Tarduno, J., M. Watkeys, T. Huffman, R. Cottrell, E. Blackman, A. Wendt, C. Scribner, and C. Wagner, 2015. Antiquity of the South Atlantic Anomaly and evidence for top-down control on the geodynamo. Nature Communications
- Wagner, C. (2022). Magnetofossils, with a side of siderite, in PETM sediments from Wilson Lake, New Jersey. IRM Quarterly, 32(1), 2–4.