Jay L. Banner

    Professor, Department of Geological Sciences
                      Jackson School of Geosciences
    Director, Environmental Science Institute
    University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712
    Phone: 512-471-5016 (Fax 9425)
    

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RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS
Jay Banner's research and teaching interests center on Earth surface processes with the goal of understanding the interactions that occur between the atmosphere-land-ocean systems, and how these interactions are preserved in the geologic record.  These subjects are explored using a range of approaches that include field studies, petrography, isotope geochemistry, and  modeling.  Examples of research projects using these approaches are studies of cave deposits (speleothems) as records of the links between climate change and hydrology, studies of carbonate rocks as records of the chemistry of ancient oceans, and studies of modern aquifers in urbanizing environments. These projects are detailed below.

RESEARCH GROUP  
Jay Banners research group includes graduate students Corinne Wong, Brian Cowan, Carson Werner and Richard Casteel; undergraduate students Ashley Quinn and Nathan van Oort; postdoctoral fellows Judson Partin and Weimin Feng; and Research Associates Larry Mack and Eric James. Faculty collaborators at UT include Jack Sharp, Liang Yang, Charles Jackson, Bayani Cardenas, Terry Quinn, Fred Taylor, Rose Came, Christine Hawkes, Randy Linder, and Dan Breecker. Research collaborators at other institutions include Isabel Montanez (UC Davis), John Mylroie (Miss. State), John Jenson (Univ. Guam), Larry Edwards (Minnesota), Libby Stern (FBI), and Malcolm Cleaveland (Univ. Arkansas).

RESEARCH PROJECTS
Our group investigates three main research areas, described below.

Paleoclimate and Paleohydrology
Speleothems are cave calcite deposits that are geographically widespread and contain key information about past hydrologic, geomorphic and climate conditions. Records of past conditions are being reconstructed in Texas, the Western Pacific region, the Bahamas, and Barbados. One emphasis of this research is the rigorous assessment of ancient signals recorded by speleothems through monitoring experiments in active caves. This research is supported by NSF and the Water and Environmental Research Institute of the University of Guam.

 

Hydrogeology
The processes of groundwater and surface water evolution, flow paths, and impacts of urbanization are investigated using stable and radiogenic isotopes and trace elements. This approach is applied to the Edwards aquifer of Texas, the midcontinent USA, the Pleistocene aquifer of Barbados, and Austin-area streams. Temporal changes in these processes are investigated through geochemical analysis of tree-rings and travertine growth layers. This research is supported by NSF.
 

 

Ancient ocean chemistry
Reconstructing the chemistry of ancient oceans using marine carbonate rocks is applied to examining past changes in Earth surface processes and chemical stratigraphic correlation. Essential to the successful analysis of such ancient sedimentary sequences is establishing criteria for identifying least-altered samples through petrographic, stratigraphic, and geochemical means. These studies have been conducted in the Mississippian of the midcontinent, Cambrian of the Great Basin, and Devonian of Western Australia, and have been supported by NSF and ACS.

 

 

Publications on these projects can be found at http://www.geo.utexas.edu/faculty/banner/Publications/Pubs.htm, other educational materials on these projects can be found at www.esi.utexas.edu/caves.

ANALYTICAL FACILITIES

Isotope Clean Lab    Mass spectrometers       

CLASSES

Sedimentary Rocks 

Environmental Isotope Geochemistry

Living with a Planet

Geologic Records of Environmental Change

Field Methods: Geo 660 Summer 2000 Photo Gallery

F05302

 

PUBLICATIONS

RELATED RESEARCH PROGRAMS in the Department of Geological Sciences at UT Austin:

Isotope Geochemistry Program          Hydrogeology Program         Sedimentary Geology Program

S09Sched

11/09/09