Oscar Branson

Shells, oceans and carbon.

Research Area

I am interested in the formation of calcium carbonate minerals by marine organisms, and how these processes interact with global climate and chemical cycles. I study the structure, mineralogy and composition of these complex ‘biominerals’, and work out how organisms manipulate chemical and physical processes to control crystal formation. The overall aim is to understand how organisms will respond to future climate change, and how we can derive records of ancient climate conditions from the chemistry of their shells.

This topic is highly interdisciplinary, and so is my research team. We apply techniques from biology, chemistry, physics, geochemistry and computational modelling to understand the fine detail and global patterns of biomineral formation. This includes physiology, synthetic crystal precipitation, dissolved carbon chemistry, X-ray and electron diffraction/spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, machine learning and much more. We have access to cutting-edge analytical facilities for all these techniques, and a state-of-the-art marine aquarium facility to grow calcifying organisms (e.g. corals and foraminifera).

A major goal of my current research is to develop a quantitative mechanistic understanding of biomineral formation that can be used to: 1) predict how these processes will respond to both future climate change and the modification of seawater chemistry by ocean-based carbon capture technologies, and 2) improve our interpretation of geochemical palaeoclimate records.

Project Interests

I am interested in developing projects that will advance our fundamental understanding of biomineralisation processes, their role in global climate and chemical cycling, and the interpretation of geochemical proxy records. This could include empirical studies of the response of marine organisms to environmental conditions, fundamental studies of the formation and transformation of calcium carbonate in seawater, using machine learning to predict future patterns of marine calcification, the development of novel sensors for monitoring biomineralisation processes, and much more...

You can find out more about the type of work happening in my group here: https://biomin.esc.cam.ac.uk/. Feel free to contact any of us to find out more!