Sandra Passchier is an Associate Professor of Geoscience in the Department of Earth and Environmental Studies. Her primary research interests are in the stability of polar ice sheets and their role in global climate change as it can be extracted from sediment cores on high latitude continental margins. She was an invited scientist in 5 international drilling programs in Antarctica, is the lead author on peer-reviewed articles in journals such as GSA Bulletin, G-cubed, Paleoceanography, Sedimentology, and the Journal of Geophysical Research, and co-authored publications in Nature, Science, and Nature Geoscience. Dr. Passchier has received over $800k in external funding from NSF and the Joint Oceanographic Institutions. She holds a Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from The Ohio State University and an M.S. in Physical Geography from the University of Amsterdam.

At Montclair State University Dr. Passchier has taught: Planet Earth, Historical Geology, Understanding Weather and Climate, Invertebrate Paleobiology, Stratigraphy, Graduate Seminar on Aquatic Sedimentary Environments and Sedimentary Petrology

STUDENT OPPORTUNITIES
Ph.D. position:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12533704/positions/PhDIODPExp347.pdf
Undergraduate lab assistant:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12533704/positions/2013UGPositionAnnouncement.pdf

Over the past 20 years my research has primarily focused on sediments recording the role of the Earth's cryosphere in long-term global climate change. My students, colleagues and I have worked on Cenozoic glacial and coastal sediment records in Antarctica, Greenland, and the North Sea basin and the lithified glacial rocks of the Neoproterozoic Squantum "Tillite" in the Boston basin. We use sedimentary facies analyses from visual outcrop, core descriptions, and acoustic data in combination with physical and chemical laboratory methods to reconstruct sedimentary paleoenvironments, sediment dispersal paths, paleoweathering signals, and ice-sheet extent. My niche is the study of sediments sourced from former or present ice centers to provide constraints for the interpretation of far-field records of cryospheric change, such as sequence stratigraphic and isotope proxies. I have completed 5 expeditions to Antarctica and 1 to Greenland. I have also completed a dozen shipboard cruises in the North Sea, working on sediment dynamics and habitat characteristics of a shallow siliciclastic shelf.

Current research projects are described below under "Research Projects".

SELECTED RECENT PUBLICATIONS (*designates student authors)

Passchier, S., Bohaty, S.M., Jiménez-Espejo, F., Pross, J., Röhl, U., van de Flierdt, T., Escutia, C., Brinkhuis, H., 2013 (in press). Early Eocene – to – middle Miocene cooling and aridification of East Antarctica. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems.

Stocchi, P., Escutia, C., Houben, A.J.P., Vermeersen, B.L.A., Bijl, P.K., Brinkhuis, H., DeConto, R.M., Galeotti, S., Passchier, S., Pollard, D., and IODP Expedition 318 scientists, 2013, Relative sea level rise around East Antarctica during Oligocene glaciation. Nature Geoscience, online April 21, doi:10.1038/ngeo1783.

Houben, A.J.P., Bijl, P.K., Pross, J., Bohaty, S.M., Passchier, S., Stickley, C.E., Röhl, U., Sugisaki, S., Tauxe, T., van de Flierdt, T., Olney, M., Sangiorgi, F., Sluijs, A., Escutia, C., Brinkhuis, H., and the Expedition 318 Scientists, 2013. Reorganization of Southern Ocean plankton ecosystem at the onset of Antarctic glaciation. Science. V. 340 no. 6130 p. 341-344, doi: 10.1126/science.1223646.

Passchier, S., *Falk., C. and Florindo, F., 2013. Orbitally-paced shifts in the particle size of the Antarctic continental shelf in response to ice dynamics during the Miocene Climatic Optimum. Geosphere, doi:10.1130/GES00840.1, http://geosphere.gsapubs.org/content/early/2012/12/13/GES00840.1.abstract

Pross, J., Contreras, L., Bijl, P.K., Greenwood, D.R., Bohaty, S.M., Schouten, S., Bendle, J.A., Röhl, U., Tauxe, L., Raine, J.I., Huck, C.E., van de Flierdt, T., Jamieson, S.S.R., Stickley, C.E., van de Schootbrugge, B., Escutia, C., Brinkhuis, H., IODP Expedition 318 Scientists (incl. Passchier, S.) (2012): Persistent near-tropical warmth on the Antarctic continent during the early Eocene epoch. Nature, doi: 10.1038/nature11300. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7409/full/nature11300.html

Tauxe, L., Stickley, C.E., Sugisaki, S., Bijl, P.K., Bohaty, S.M., Brinkhuis, H., Escutia, C., Flores, J.-A., Houben, A.J.P., Iwai, M., Jimenez-Espejo, F., McKay, R., Passchier, S., Pross, J., Riesselman, C.R., Roehl, U., Sangiorgi, F., Welsh, and 13 others (2012). Chronostratigraphic framework for the IODP Expedition 318 cores from the Wilkes Land Margin: Constraints for paleoceanographic reconstruction. Paleoceanography VOL. 27, PA2214, 19 PP., doi:10.1029/2012PA002308. http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012PA002308.shtml

*Hauptvogel, D.W. and Passchier, S., 2012. Early-middle Miocene (17-14 Ma) Antarctic ice dynamics reconstructed from the heavy mineral provenance in AND-2A, Ross Sea, Antarctica. Global and Planetary Change, 82-83, 38–50. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818111002037

Passchier, S., Browne, G., Field, B., Fielding, C.R., Krissek, L.A., Panter, K., Pekar, S.F. and ANDRILL-SMS Science Team, 2011. Early and middle Miocene Antarctic glacial history from the sedimentary facies distribution in the AND-2A drill hole, Ross Sea, Antarctica. GSA Bulletin, v. 123; no. 11-12; p. 2352-2365; DOI: 10.1130/B30334.1 FREE REPRINT: http://bulletin.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/full/123/11-12/2352?ijkey=WjhuaWsX1pOcc&keytype=ref&siteid=gsabull

Passchier, S., 2011. Linkages between East Antarctic Ice Sheet extent and Southern Ocean temperatures based on a Pliocene high-resolution record of ice-rafted debris off Prydz Bay, East Antarctica. Paleoceanography, 26, PA4204, doi:10.1029/2010PA002061. http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2010PA002061.shtml

Passchier, S., 2011. Ancient Antarctic Fjords (News and Views). Nature, 474(7349), 46–47, doi:10.1038/474046a http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7349/full/474046a.html

Passchier, S., and *Erukanure, E., 2010. Paleoenvironments and weathering regime of the Neoproterozoic Squantum “Tillite”, Boston Basin: no evidence of a snowball Earth. Sedimentology, 57, 1526–1544. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-3091.2010.01154.x/abstract

Passchier, S., Laban, C., Mesdag, C., Rijsdijk, K.F., 2010. Subglacial bed conditions during late Pleistocene glaciations and their impact on ice dynamics in the southern North Sea. Boreas, 39, 633–647,10.1111/j.1502-3885.2009.00138.x. ISSN 0300-9483. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1502-3885.2009.00138.x/abstract

Stickley, C.E., St John, K.E., Koç, N., Jordan, R.W., Passchier, S., Pearce, R.B., Kearns, L.E., 2009. Evidence for middle Eocene Arctic sea ice from diatoms and ice-rafted debris. Nature, 460, 376-379.

Expedition Objective Research: Early Pliocene Record Of Antarctic Ice Rafting And Paleoenvironmental Conditions, Wilkes Land Margin, Antarctica

The Pliocene was the last epoch wherein the atmospheric pCO2 was similar to today's partial pressure and global surface temperatures were higher than the modern with a larger than average degree of warming occurring at high latitudes. This project investigates early Pliocene East Antarctic ice dynamics and paleoenvironmental conditions from variations in the production of ice-rafted debris and major element geochemistry of sediment cores collected during IODP Expedition 318 to the Wilkes Land margin of Antarctica. This portion of Antarctica carries the Wilkes and Aurora subglacial basins, where the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) is grounded below sea level, and is potentially unstable. Funding: Consortium for Ocean Leadership and National Science Foundation

The Stratigraphic Expression of the Onset of Glaciation in Eocene-Oligocene Successions on the Antarctic Continental Margin

This project will investigate glacial advance and retreat of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet through the Eocene-Oligocene transition, a major episode of ice growth. In Prydz Bay, East Antarctica, a 130-170 m thick Eocene-Oligocene transition interval of glaciomarine sediments was cored in drillholes of the Ocean Drilling Program at Sites 739, 742 and 1166. Recent drilling on the Wilkes Land margin of East Antarctica recovered earliest Oligocene sediments overlying a major regional unconformity in two drillholes. The PI, one graduate and two undergraduate students will study the lithostratigraphy and weathering history of cores in the five drillholes, to establish a unique Eocene-Oligocene transition record within Antarctic continental margin sediments of glacial advance and retreat cycles, the onset of physical weathering, and glacio-isostasy and self-gravitation processes with implications for the margin architecture, sediment routing, and off-shore sediment dispersal. Cores from the five drillholes will be re-examined through detailed core description, detailed laser particle size and bulk major element geochemistry via ICP-AES. Phases of major ice growth will be recognized as marker beds of physically eroded sediment and will be correlated to isotopic records documenting Antarctic ice growth offshore in the Southern Ocean. Funded by the National Science Foundation.