Skip to main content
Overview
Affiliations
AffiliationTelephone
Professor of Stable Isotope Geochemistry in the Department of Earth Sciences+44 (0) 191 33 42427
Fellow of the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing 

Biography

2017 — Associate Professor (Reader), Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University, UK.

2008 – 2016 — Reader, Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University, UK.

2007 – 2008  — Lecturer, Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University, UK.

2006 – 2007  — Associate Professor, School of Geography & Earth Sciences, McMaster University, Canada.

2003 – 2006  — Assistant Professor, School of Geography & Earth Sciences, McMaster University, Canada.

2000 – 2003  — Lecturer, Department of Geology, Royal Holloway University of London, UK.

Research Interests

Darren Gröcke is the Director of the Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry Laboratory (SIBL — more details can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/stablesibl/home) in Durham University. He is an international expert in the field of stable isotope geochemistry and in particular stable carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen isotopes. His research interests are not confined to a specific topic or specific time interval, but span all the sciences and the geological record. Research areas that he has made significant advances is in stable isotope stratigraphy, understanding the causes and consequences of oceanic anoxic events, carbon isotopes in fossil plants as a stratigraphic tool, palaeodietary reconstruction with nitrogen isotopes, and the application of hydrogen isotopes in beetles as a recorder of climate and environment.

Current research projects include:

  • Stable isotopes in macroalgae
  • Cultivation in archaeology as recorded by nitrogen isotopes
  • Understanding modern organic carbon burial in estuarine environments
  • Hydrogen isotopes in archaeological collagen
  • Climatic and environmental change recorded at the Triassic/Jurassic boundary
  • Silurian stratigraphy of evaporite environments
  • Stable isotope records in tree rings
  • Archaeology and environment of submersed forests around the UK coast

Research interests

  • Stable Isotopes
  • Environmental Science
  • Geochemistry
  • Archaeology
  • Pollution
  • Macroalgae
  • Palaeoceanography
  • Palaeoclimates
  • Palaeodiets
  • Palaeoenvironments

Esteem Indicators

  • 2019: R.M. Baguley Award: Awarded for best publication in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society in 2018. Gron, K.J., Rowley-Conwy, P., Fernandez-Dominguez, E., Gröcke, D.R., Montgomery, J., Nowell, G.M. & Patterson, W.P. (2018). A meeting in the forest: hunters and farmers at the Coneybury ‘Anomaly’, Wiltshire. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 84:111–144.
  • 2018: Angel Award: Awarded for outstanding research on the Lant Street Romans, subsequently published in: Redfern, R., Gröcke, D.R., et al. (2016). Going south of the river: A multidisciplinary analysis of ancestry, mobility and diet in a population from Roman Southwark, London. Journal of Archaeological Sciences 74:11–22.
  • 2004: McMaster University VP Research Award:

Publications

Chapter in book

Journal Article

Report

Supervision students