Maureen Raymo

Maureen E. Raymo is an American paleoclimatologist and marine geologist.

Career

Maureen Raymo is a Lamont Research Professor and Director of the Lamont-Doherty Core Repository at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. She is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2016 she was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Raymo has won various prizes for her scientific work, including becoming in 2014 the first woman to be awarded the prestigious Wollaston Medal - the highest award of the Geological Society of London [1][2] and later in 2014, she will be awarded the Milutin Milankovic Medal at the European Geosciences Union’s annual meeting for her use of geochemistry, geology and geophysics to solve paleoclimatology’s big problems.[3] In 2002, she was included by the illustrated magazine Discover in a list of the 50 most important women in science [4][5] and in her nomination for the Wollaston Medal, Professor James Scourse described her as ".. one of the foremost and influential figures in the last 30 years...She’s been an important role model to women scientists—you can get to the top".[6]

Raymo earned her reputation particularly from developing (along with William Ruddiman and Philip Froelich) the Uplift-Weathering Hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, tectonic uplift of areas such as the Tibetan plateau has contributed to surface cooling. During phases of mountain range formation, there are at the surface many minerals which can chemically interact with carbon dioxide. During the process of chemical weathering, there is a net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, as a result of which the temperature on the ground decreases. She and her colleagues initially suggested that measuring the proportions of isotopes of strontium in deep ocean sediments could substantiate the Uplift-Weathering Hypothesis but soon recognized that ambiguities in the sources of Sr to the ocean existed. Over twenty years later, the hypothesis continues to be debated and studied.

Raymo is also well known for her interdisciplinary work, particularly using palaeoceanography to better understand the thermohaline circulation and pacing of ice ages over the Pleistocene and Pliocene and how they link to changes in orbital forcing and Milankovitch climate dynamics.[7] Raymo, along with her collaborator Lorraine Lisiecki, has made important contributions to palaeoclimate science and stratigraphic by means of oxygen isotope analysis of foraminifera from sample cores of deep ocean sediments including publishing the widely used 5 million year LR04 benthic foraminifera stable oxygen isotope stack record.[8]

A list of Raymo's current projects can be found on her website http://moraymo.us/projects/.

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References

External links

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