Robert Muir
Senior Lecturer
Geology Department
University of the Free State
Biography
I’m a South African emerging researcher with a keen interest in time calibrating the sedimentary rock record to understand the biological evolution of life and the physical evolution of the planet. I am also interested in how a changing earth's surface affects the distribution of organisms in space and time. I aim to straddle this fascinating intersection of biology and geology as I grow a career as an academic in South Africa.
Disciplines
Geology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, Palaeo-ecology, Ecology, Geochronology, Thermochronology, Isotope geochemistry.
Fields of study
Palaeoscientits and stratigraphers cannot agree on what happened during, or even the timing of the least well understood Phanerozoic system boundary: The Jurassic-Cretaceous (J-K). This is due to the strong provincialism of the fossil record and the lack of datable strata on the historically studied northern hemisphere sites. My current Genus-supported study investigates the J-K boundary in South Africa, within the Jurassic-Cretaceous Uitenhage Group, providing an additional snapshot into this enigmatic time period. It aims to place the boundary within the Uitenhage Group using geochronological techniques and to characterise climatic and environmental change across it using sedimentological and geochemical techniques applied to marine fossils and terrestrial mudstones. Since the Morokweng impact occurred in close proximity during deposition, these strata will also be assessed for any impact-related signature and investigated for their role, if any, in perturbing the climate. This multidisciplinary study contributes toward resolving the uncertainty in the timing and events that occurred at the J-K transition and provides temporal and palaeoenvironmental context to the flora and fauna that lived during this time.
Awards and recognition
- Received the Claude Leon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship award for 2019–2021.
- Runner-up for best Oral presentation at the Palaeontological Society of South Africa (PSSA) 2018.
- Received NRF Scarce Skills doctoral bursary for 2016, 2017 and 2018.
- Received NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeoscience (CoE-Pal) masters bursary 2015.
- Achieved top student in the UCT Geology Hons class of 2014 and a thesis with distinction.
- Received “Most promising student researcher for an academic career” award at the Palaeontological Society of South Africa (PSSA) 2014, awarded by the Palaeontological Scientific Trust (PAST). This prize is rarely awarded and given only to young researchers who show exceptional promise as future academics.
- Received Barry Hawthorne Centennial Prize for top undergraduate Geology student at UCT in 2013.
