I am the first of my family to attend college and as such I am particularly motivated to help broaden the participation of underrepresented groups in STEM. The Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary (KPB) is associated with one of the five largest mass extinction events in the geologic record and is typified by the rapid loss of taxa such as the non-avian Dinosaurs. The extinction may serve as an analog to the modern ecological crisis. I will work to develop a high-temporal resolution record of the paleoenvironmental and palaeoecological turnover across the KPB using plant and bacterial biomarkers preserved in low grade coals (lignites) in the Hell Creek region of Montana.
Anthony Joseph Fuentes
