Western Australian Organic & Isotope Geochemistry Centre

John Curtin Distinguished Professor Kliti Grice is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and an internationally renowned organic geochemist who creatively combines geological information with data on molecular fossils and their stable carbon, hydrogen, sulfur and nitrogen isotopic compositions to reconstruct details of microbial, fungal and floral inhabitants of ancient aquatic environments (geobiology). She is well known for identifying geological and environmental basis  for some of the largest mass extinctions of life in Earth’s history. She is currently investigating the changes in the paleoenvironment in the Chicxulub crater (Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico) drilled by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) and International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP) Expedition 364.

She has integrated molecular and isotopic information on plant and algal physiology, microbial ecology, food-webs, organic chemistry, and energy and environmental geochemistry with the geological record of our planet’s history. Her analyses of the natural variation in stable isotopes of lipids present in controlled growth experiments from extant plants, algae and grazing organisms have provided new insights into how these systems function across palaeoecological to modern timescales and across a wide spatial range. She is also researching geobiology of extinct species and especially environments associated with exceptional soft tissue preservation of fossils (Konservat and Konzentrat-Lagerstätten).

Grice’s outstanding research reputation has also attracted many national and international PhD and postdoctoral scholars to the wonders of Earth science.