Ellen Thomas

Senior Research Scientist

Department of Geology and Geophysics

Phone:203-432-5928 | FAX:203-432-3134
Office location:336 Kline Geology Laboratory
Personal Website

Ellen Thomas investigates the impact of changes in environment and climate on living organisms on various time scales, from millions of years to decades, with the common focal point of benthic foraminifera (eukaryotic unicellular organisms). Foraminifera live in salt or at least brackish water, and so her focus is on the oceans, from the deep sea up into tidal salt marshes. She is particularly interested in understanding the development of high-diversity deep-sea faunas through periods of major climate change and mass extinction, such as the mass extinction caused by meteorite impact at the end of the Cretaceous (65 million years ago), ande xtreme warm climates on Earth including the Paleocene (55 million years ago). Her research also evaluates changes in deep-sea faunas during other periods of global change, such as the earliest Oligocene (~33.5 million years ago) when the Antarctic ice sheet originated, and possible links between glaciation and initiation of the AntArctic Circumpolar Current.

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