The year 2022 has come to a close. While the world has gone crazy, Zhang Lab has never stopped generating and sharing science and making some dents to the paleoclimate research community! Here is what Zhang Lab have achieved and contributed in 2022 in numbers. We wish y’all the best in 2023! Happy New Year from Zhang Lab ..read more

A group photo at the end of her defense! Daianne (top left) with her advisor, Dr. Yige Zhang (second from the left; top row) have delivered intriging findings of Clarkia Lake Deposit with TAMU Oceanography, alongside with her MSc thesis committee members: Dr. Ethan Grossman (second from the right; top row), Dr. Jason West (first from the left, second row), and Dr. Franco Marcantonio (second from the left; second row). On March 11th, 2021, Daianne defended her thesis titled “Annually-resolved Sedimentation of the Middle Miocene Clarkia Lake Deposit (USA)”. It addressed the sedimentation history ..read more

Dr. Zhang has co-authored a study revealing that Earth’s carbon dioxide atmospheric concentrations averaged 250 parts per million for 2.5 million years. For refernece, today’s levels are about 410 parts per million. On September 25, 2019, the research “Low CO2 levels of the entire Pleistocene Epoch” published in Nature Communications and has intrigued media and public audience by its findings. Analyzing Paleogenic carbonates found in the ancient soil from the Loess Plateau, scientists reconstructed the Earth’s carbon dioxide levels. | Photo courtesy of Dr. Yige Zhang Convention ..read more

Before sampling, it is important to photograph the exact location from where the sample is coming for precise stratigraphic control. Dr. Hong Yang at left, Daianne Höfig at right. During the Spring Break, one of our lab-group members, Daianne Höfig, took part in fieldwork in north Idaho! She is a first-year MSc student at Texas A&M University, under the supervision of Dr. Yige Zhang, and studies carbon dioxide variations during the middle Miocene using biomarkers. To achieve this goal, she sampled fossil leaves of different angiosperm species that lived 15 million years ago that were prese ..read more

Published on Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, doi:10.1029/2018PA003337.     TEX86 is widely used for evaluating ancient ocean temperatures. However, the debate on the export depth of the TEX86 signal in the water column has not been settled. Consequently, TEX86 has been interpreted as/calibrated to surface, shallow subsurface or deep subsurface temperatures.  Here we examine the published core-top TEX86 data between 30°N to 30°S where the ocean temperatures at the surface show a clear latitudinal gradient, but not at the deep subsurface. The meridional distribution of the ..read more

Published on Earth Planet. Sci. Lett, 2017, 467, 1-9.      Cold, nutrient- and CO2-rich waters upwelling in the eastern equatorial Pacific (EEP) give rise to the Pacific cold tongue. Quasi-periodic subsidence of the thermocline and attenuation in wind strength expressed by El Niño conditions decrease upwelling rates, increase surface-water temperatures in the EEP, and lead to changes in regional climates both near and far from the equatorial Pacific. EEP surface waters have elevated CO2 concentrations during neutral (upwelling) or La Niña (strong upwelling) conditions. In contr ..read more

photo: Mark, Ping, Yabo and Yige, October 2014 In memoriam: Mark Pagani, my advisor and my friend November 16th, 2016 (Guam Time). I was about to write an email to Mark. It’s been a few days since I last wrote to him. He was too weak to respond to emails, but one of his best friends, Eric, who also lives in New Haven said Mark read my previous emails and was pleased. So since I board the research vessel JOIDES Resolution as a shipboard scientist, I started to write to him by emailing or texting (when we had cell phone reception). Today I was going to write “when you are well again, don’t ever ..read more

Expedition 363 broke the IODP record with almost 7 km of sediment cores recovered! 9 sites were drilled in the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool. Thanks to everybody onboard of JR and those at IODP, NSF etc! At TAMU Oceanography our goal is to examine the Neogene temperature evolution of the warmest surface seawater on Earth ..read more