The original MOBILE Team started as a core group in 2019 involving researchers from Brazil, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark and Scotland. After obtaining the grant approval for the first pilot year and subsequential approval for continuing studies for the 2022-2025 period from Instituto Serrapilheira and CNPq, our group quickly expanded to include researchers from all over the world. Here you will find information about some of the members of the original group and the main collaborators. To find out about present Students and Alumni, click on the links above.
Main Researchers
BRAZIL
Fabrício Caxito
UFMG
The rocks that outcrop today act as recorders for ancient life, chemical, atmospheric and paleogeographic conditions. My main goal as a scientist is to try to read this record through isotope and geochemical tools. These tools provide the clues to reconstruct Earth’s paleogeography, paleochemistry and life and how they are interconnected, and to understand the feedbacks between all of Earth’s cycles and how we affect the planet and vice-versa.
Gabriel Uhlein
UFMG
I investigate ancient sedimentary basins through sequence stratigraphy and chemostratigraphy data (trace metals, rare earth elements, and stable isotopes of carbonates and shales). The Neoproterozoic Era and the Cambrian Period are the main focus of my researches and are key time intervals for the understanding of the evolution of atmosphere, oceans and life. Interrelated and unprecedent events such as extreme climate fluctuation, rise in atmospheric oxygen, shifts of the seafloor redox state and diversification of complex life during these intervals were responsible for the foundation of modern environments.
Tiago Novo
UFMG
Associate Professor at the Department of Geology of UFMG, made a postdoctoral appointment at the Ghent University in Low-temperature thermochronology (2018). My research interests include thermochronology, petrochronology, and regional geology; in other words, my focus is to find out the timing of the geological processes that occur in the shallow, medium, and deep crust.
Lucas Warren
UNESP
Lucas V. Warren is a professor of sedimentology at the Institute of Geosciences and Exact Sciences of the Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) and a CNPq Research Productivity Scholar – Level 1D. Graduated in Geology in the University of São Paulo (2002), Master in Geosciences (Sedimentary Geology) and PhD in Sedimentology and Stratigraphy by the same institution. He works mainly in the area of sedimentary basin analysis with an emphasis on facies and sedimentology analysis, sequence stratigraphy and Precambrian paleontology. Is member of the International Commission on Stratigraphy – Subcommission on Ediacaran Stratigraphy (https://sites.google.com/view/ediacaran/home) since 2016. His main interest covers aspects such as: 1) sedimentary evolution of Precambrian carbonate platforms; 2) Geochemistry and geochronology of the Precambrian-Cambrian passage; 3) Taxonomy, taphonomy and paleoecology of Precambrian ecosystems; 4) Origin of animals; 5) Multy-proxy analysis of carbonate sequences; 6) Microbial rocks. He works as a principal researcher or collaborator on projects in Ediacaran successions in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, China and Namibia.
Juliana Okubo
UNESP
Post-doc in sedimentary geochemistry at UNESP, Brazil. Currently, my research focuses on the Marinoan carbonate layers and the paleoenvironmental changes in ocean water during the late Ediacaran.
Cristiano Lana
UFOP
Head of the Applied Isotope Research Group – AIR-G, UFOP (air.ufop.br). I specialize in Laser Ablation ICP-MS applications, with special emphasis in isotopes and trace element geochemistry applied to metamorphic, igneous, sedimentary and hydrothermal systems.
Paulo Henrique Amorim Dias
Brazilian Geological Survey (CPRM)
Researcher at Brazilian Geological Survey (SBG-CPRM), his research is mainly on sedimentary sequences related to the São Francisco Supergroup (passive-margin and foreland sediments), focused on geological mapping, stratigraphy, geochronology and provenance. Currently, his work at CPRM is related to geodynamics and tectonic evolution studies using mainly geophysical data (seismic, gravimetric and magnetometric) and 2-3D modeling.
Collaborators
BRAZIL
Carlos Ganade (Caê)
Brazilian Geological Survey (CPRM)
Some like to climb a mountain. I prefer to dig them down instead. My research interest is to understand mountain building process by reading the rock record at their exposed roots. For that, I combine field investigation with the chemical and isotopic response of rocks and minerals from deeply eroded Neoproterozoic mountains in Brazil and Africa. During this period, at 800 to 600 million years ago, plate tectonics in Earth started to behave as we know today. This profound change in Earth’s geodynamics resulted in global overturns that affected climate and life, making today’s Neoproterozoic mountain root lowlands more exciting than the view on the top of the Everest.
Mahyra Tedeschi
UFMG
Mahyra is an adjunct professor of mineralogy and petrochronology at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Her research is focused on petrochronology, combining geochronology with the reconstruction of pressure-temperature-time paths and geochemistry to unfold the timing and rates of geological processes – mainly igneous and metamorphic – and to understand the geodynamic evolution of Precambrian orogens.
Antônio Carlos Pedrosa-Soares
UFMG
One intriguing geological link between South America and Africa is a continental bridge that connected regions now located in eastern Brazil and western Gabon from two billion years ago to the Atlantic Ocean opening in Cretaceous time. This long-lived continental bridge was shaped after rifting processes that formed, between the Congo paleocontinent and São Francisco paleopeninsula, a Neoproterozoic inland-sea basin with large deposits of organic matter. During Western Gondwana amalgamation, that inland-sea basin was tectonically squeezed and became a 1,000 km long mountain chain, the AWCO (Araçuaí – West Congo Orogen), separating two carbonate-rich basins, the Bambuí basin, in Brazil, and the Schisto-Calcaire basin, in Africa. The AWCO chain started growing in Early Ediacaran with volcanic arc rising, followed by collisional mountain relief and its gravitational collapse up to Late Cambrian, imposing tectonic controls on drainage systems and marine incursions in a vast region. Now, the task is to understand life development in such a scenario. This summarizes my main focus in four decades of scientific work, i.e., the characterization, evolution and paleogeographic implications of the AWCO mountain chain and adjacent regions (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Antonio_Carlos_Pedrosa-Soares; http://lattes.cnpq.br/0388600397612432).
Eliza Peixoto
Universidade de Brasília
Adjunct professor of structural geology and geologic mapping at the University of Brasília. My investigation has focused on understanding the tectono-metamorphic evolution of Precambrian orogenic belts combining pseudosection thermobarometry, geochronology of thermal events and structural geology characterization.
Elton Dantas
Universidade de Brasília
Geochronology and isotope geology expert at the Geochron Lab of UnB, Elton found the oldest rocks in South America, 3.5 billion-years old gneisses on the extreme northeast of Brazil, and rocks even older than that are popping up in this area.
AUSTRALIA
Ross Large
University of Tasmania
Distinguished Professor Ross Large is internationally renowned in ore deposit geology. His research has focused on understanding how mineral deposits form and using this knowledge to help industry find deposits of ore like gold. But he has now turned his geological skills to answering the most fundamental question of all – what controlled the evolution of life?
BELGIUM
Johan de Grave
Ghent University
Full professor at the Department of Geology of Ghent University (Belgium), where he is head of the Mineralogy and Petrology research unit (https://www.ugent.be/we/geologie/en/research/minpet). In 2003 Johan obtained his degree of PhD in Geology with a doctoral thesis at Ghent University on the use of apatite fission-track thermochronology to reconstruct the evolution of orogens in Central Asia and Siberia. He later developed a multi-method approach to elucidate the tectonic history of basement rocks in both compressional and extensional setting and also studies the source-to-sink dynamics of orogeny-basin systems. Currently, his research team is working on these issues in Central and Southeast Asia, the Congo, Brazil and various other study areas.
https://www.ugent.be/we/geologie/en/research/minpet/staff-members
CANADA
Galen Halverson
McGill University
I integrate sedimentology, stratigraphy, and isotope geochemistry to reconstruct ancient environments within the context of secular and progressive tectonic, biospheric, and climatic evolution of the earth. The underlying theme of my research is to reconstruct paleoenvironmental change spanning from the middle Proterozoic to the early Phanerozoic (ca. 1800 to 500 ma) and to understand the interconnections between tectonics (i.e., supercontinental break-up and assembly), seawater chemistry and ocean redox, severe climatic fluctuations (including snowball Earth), and the origin and diversification of eukaryotes. This research is fundamentally field-based and geared around detailed geological studies of sedimentary basins that formed during this time.
Ross Stevenson
Université du Québec à Montréal
Ross Stevenson has 30 years’ experience in studying the interaction between the Earth’s mantle and crustal reservoirs. He has applied his knowledge to deciphering the origin of alkaline magmas, continental basalts, ore deposits as well as sedimentary and agro-food provenance studies. His expertise includes igneous petrology, geochemistry, and radiogenic and stable isotope techniques.
DENMARK
Robert Frei
University of Copenhagen
I am a Professor of Geochemistry at the Dept. of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen (KU), Denmark, since 1997. After conducting my MSc and PhD studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zürich, I worked as an assistant professor at University of Bern for 5 years. After a two years period as laboratory manager of the Danish Center for Isotope Geology, I then took the position of an ordinary professor at KU. I am a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters since 2004, and published over 250 ISI registered articles, currently setting an H-index to 50. My interests range from paleoclimate research using a variety of traditional and non-traditional isotope systems, to geochronology, environmental geochemistry, magmatic-metamorphic petrology and ore deposits research. I am lately also interested in provenance and mobility studies of prehistoric humans and so entered the field of archaeometry.
https://ign.ku.dk/english/employees/geology/?pure=en/persons/111368
GERMANY
Vitor Barrote
Freie Universität Berlin
Vitor Barrote is a Posdoctoral researcher at the AG Geochemistry group at Freie Universität Berlin. His research interests lie in the field of isotopic geochemistry and geochronology, with a special interest in technical development and the use of multidisciplinary studies applied in unorthodox ways in order to solve unusual problems. He has been involved in Economic Geology for the good part of his academic journey, from his master degree at UFMG (Brazil) to his PhD at the John de Laeter Centre, Curtin University, where he studied VHMS deposits from Western Australia. He believes that mineral deposits are rare records of amplified geological processes, and could hold fundamental keys to the understanding of major questions that every geoscientist asks themselves: the history of Earth’s evolution, the spark of life and what makes our planet so special.
Other collaborators
Here is a list of some of the persons that have been involved in research related to Project MOBILE in the last few years:
Alan Rooney – Yale University (USA)
Alexandre Uhlein – UFMG (Brazil)
Caio Vinicius Gabrig Turbay Rangel – UFSB (Brazil)
Cristina Persano – University of Glasgow (UK)
Erik Sperling – Stanford University (USA)
Francis MacDonald – UCSB (USA)
Huan Cui – Mississipi State University (USA)
Lauro Cézar Montefalco de Lira Santos – UFPE (Brazil)
Mirna Aparecida Neves – UFES (Brazil)
Peter Cawood – Monash University (Australia)
Shuhai Xiao – Virginia Tech (USA)
Simon Poulton – University of Leeds (UK)
Susannah Porter – UCSB (USA)
Project MOBILE 