Kathleen Campbell
Kathleen Campbell
Kathleen Campbell
Geologist, Paleoecologist & Astrobiologist
Kathleen Campbell is a geologist, paleoecologist, and astrobiologist. She studies extreme environments like hot springs and cold seeps in order to understand the evolution of life on Earth and to inform the search for past life on Mars.
Kathleen is originally from California. She and her family took road trips around the western United States when she was young, which is how she first became interested in geology and paleontology. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She later did her master’s research at the University of Washington and her Ph.D. research at the University of Southern California. She had a postdoctoral appointment (a temporary research position) at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California from 1995 to 1997. She is currently a Professor in the Earth Science program, School of Environment, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Kathleen is a self-described “geologist who does paleontology.” Her field studies in paleoecology and astrobiology focus on life in extreme environments. She studies undersea hydrocarbon seeps (cold seeps) and terrestrial thermal springs (hot springs), using them as proxies for the habitats in which early life evolved on Earth and also possibly on Mars. She also studies ichnofossils (trace fossils), which include trackways and other traces of animal behavior, like burrows and feeding traces. She collaborates with other scientists internationally and has done research in New Zealand, Patagonia (southern South America), South Africa, the Australian Outback, and western North America. In 2017, she was part of a team that reported the earliest evidence for land-based life from a nearly 3.5 billion-year-old hot spring deposit.
Kathleen teaches courses on a variety of topics, including general geology, astrobiology, and hydrothermal systems. Along with the paleoecological and paleoenvironmental aspects of geology, her lessons emphasize the importance of effective written communication about science. She has been co-supervisor for at least 79 graduate students. In addition to her teaching and research duties, she also works as an associate editor or editorial board member for several scientific journals. She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2016.
Daring to Dig Interview
In this video, Kathleen discusses how she became interested in paleontology, what she is most proud of in career, and how finding one strange fossil as a master’s student set the course for the rest of her career.
Selected works by Kathleen Campbell
Campbell, K.A., D.M. Guido, P. Gautret, F. Foucher, C. Ramboz, and F. Westall. Geyserite in hot-spring siliceous sinter: Window on Earth’s hottest terrestrial (paleo)environment and its extreme life. Earth-Science Reviews 148: 44–64. Link
Campbell, K.A., B.Y. Lynne, K.M. Handley, S. Jordan, J.D. Farmer, D.M. Guido, F. Foucher, S. Turner, and R.S. Perry. 2015. Tracing biosignature preservation of geothermally silicified microbial textures into the geological record. Astrobiology 15: 858–882. Link
Campbell, K.A., D.M. Guido, D.A. John, P.G. Vikre, D. Rhys, and A. Hamilton. 2019. The Miocene Atastra Creek sinter (Bodie Hills volcanic field, California and Nevada): 4D evolution of a geomorphically intact siliceous hot spring deposit. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 370: 65–81. Link
Campbell, K.A., K. Nicholson, B.Y. Lynne, and P.R.L. Browne. 2020. 3D anatomy of a 60-year-old siliceous hot spring deposit at Hipaua-Waihi-Tokaanu geothermal field, Taupo Volcanic Zone, New Zealand. Sedimentary Geology 402: 105652. Link
Djokic, T., M.J. Van Kranendonk, K.A. Campbell, M.R. Walter, and C.R. Ward. 2017. Earliest signs of life on land preserved in ca. 3.5 Ga hot spring deposits. Nature Communications 8: 15263. Link
Further reading
Curious minds, He hihiri i te mahara: Kathleen Campbell. Written interview of Kathleen Campbell. Link
UNSW Sydney. 2017. Oldest evidence of life on land found in 3.48 billion-year-old Australian rocks. Science Daily, 9 May 2017. Link
Wikipedia: Kathleen Campbell (geologist). Link