Francine McCarthy

Francine McCarthy

Professor and Graduate Program Director, Earth Sciences, Brock University
Acting Graduate Program Director, Sustainability Science and Society, Brock University
Core Member, Environmental Sustainability Research Centre
Associate Member, Biological Sciences, Brock University

E-mail: fmccarthy@brocku.ca
Office: MC D-418
Phone: +1-905-688-5550 x.4286

Education:
Ph.D., Dalhousie University (Earth Science)
M.Sc., University of Toronto (Geology)
B.Sc, Dalhousie University (joint Honours, Geology & Biology)

About Francine:
Francine McCarthy is a micropaleontologist who is interested in paleoenvironmental reconstruction, primarily using acid-resistant organic walled microfossils – pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs. Her research has spanned small lake to abyssal marine environments and everything in between, primarily at mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Her interdisciplinary research has been conducted in collaboration with several geologists, biologists, geographers, and archeologists from government, university, and the private sector. She has been on the executive of several organizations, including current membership on the board of the International Association for Great Lakes Research.

Research interests:

  • paleoceanographic, paleolimnological, paleohydrological and paleoclimatic reconstructions from microfossils in sediments of late Cenozoic age
  • climatically-induced hydrologic changes in the Great Lakes region recorded by pollen/spores and algal and protozoan microfossils, focused on the arid 8200-year event and the warm last interglacial
  • microfossils, particularly algal palynomorphs, as proxies of anthropogenic impact on lacustrine and coastal marine ecosystems and as biomonitors of remediation strategies
  • lake level and sea level reconstruction, and land–sea correlation7
  • the impact of taphonomy on microfossil records, particularly the relationship between dinoflagellates in the water column and their fossilizable resting cysts in sediments
  • marine to freshwater transitions in the dinoflagellate record