BARBARA SHERWOOD LOLLAR

Office: Earth Sciences Centre, University of Toronto,
Toronto Ont. M5S 3B1 Canada. 
Phone: 416-978-0770; Fax: 416-987-3938 
email: bslollar@chem.utoronto.ca
http://www.chem.utoronto.ca/people/academic/lollarb/html

Personal Information

Ph.D (Earth Sciences) 1990, University of Waterloo
B.A. (Honours - Geological Sciences) 1985 Summa cum laude Harvard

Employment History

1992 - present: Faculty member (Professor since 2001), Dept. of Geology, University of Toronto and Director, Stable Isotope Laboratory
1999 - present: Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Chemistry, University of Toronto
1990 - 1992: NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Cambridge, U.K.

Dr. Barbara Sherwood Lollar (BA - Harvard University; PhD University of Waterloo) completed an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship at Cambridge University, UK before joining the University of Toronto in 1992. She is a Professor in Geology, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Chemistry, and Director of the Stable Isotope Laboratory. Major research themes in stable isotope geochemistry include: geochemical and biogeochemical processes controlling the source, transport and transformation of organic contaminants and hydrocarbon gases in near surface groundwaters; gas production and migration in sedimentary basins and deep groundwaters in the Canadian Shield and the Witwatersrand Basin, South Africa; geochemical controls on the deep biosphere (deep subsurface microbiology) and implications for astrobiology. In 2000 she was profiled as one of TIME Magazine's "Leaders for the 21 st Century" based on her research on innovative techniques for tracking organic contaminants in groundwater. She has served as Associate Editor for the scientific journal Ground Water , and as Editor of Volume 9: Environmental Geochemistry of the 10 volume series Treatise in Geochemistry Editors-in-Chief - Dr. H.D. Holland (Harvard University) and Dr. K. Turekian (Yale University) by Elsevier Scientific Publishing (2003) www.TreatiseOnGeochemistry.com.

Sherwood Lollar has served on, among others, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC) Council 2003-2006; the Board of Directors - Centre for Environmental Science and Technology - University of Notre Dame 2003-2005; the International Geochemical Society C.C. Patterson Medal Selection Committee 2002-2005; the Selection Committee for Geological Society of America Meinzer Award 1999-2001; and the Nominations Committee for the Organic Geochemistry Division (1997-2000; 2004-2006). Research programs in the Stable Isotope Laboratory incorporate broad, multi-disciplinary approaches to scientific questions while addressing societally important problems. Funding for our research programs is also interdisciplinary and broad-based, balancing fundamental research funded through NSERC, CIDA, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, with applied research conducted through a number of close collaborations with industrial partners.

Selected Relevant Publications:

M. Allen et al. 2006. Is Mars Alive? , EOS Transactions, American Geophysical Union, v. 87, p. 433 and 439. (PDF)

Sherwood Lollar, B. (2004) Life's Chemical Kitchen. Invited Perspective. Science Vol. 304: 972-973.

Ward, J., Lacrampe-Couloume, G., Slater, G.F., Moser, D., Lin, L., Onstott, T.C. and B. Sherwood Lollar. The origin of hydrocarbon gases in the Witwatersrand Basin, South Africa (in press Geochim. Cosmo. Acta ).

Sherwood Lollar, B., Westgate, T., Ward, J., Slater, G.F., and Lacrampe-Couloume, G. (2002) Abiogenic formation of alkanes in the Earth's crust as a minor source for global hydrocarbon reservoirs. Nature Vol. 416:522-524.

Ballentine C.J. and Sherwood Lollar, B. (2002) Regional groundwater focusing of nitrogen and noble gases into the Hugoton-Panhandle giant gas field, USA. Geochim. Cosmo acta. Vol. 66:2483-2497.

Sherwood Lollar, B., O'Nions, R.K. and Ballentine, C.J. (1997) Geochim. Cosmo acta. Vol. 61:2295-2307. The fate of mantle-derived carbon in a continental sedimentary basin: Integration of C/He relationships and stable isotope signatures.

Doig, F., Sherwood Lollar, B. and Ferris, F.G. (1995) Evidence for abundant microbial communities in Canadian Shield groundwaters - An in situ biofilm experiment.   Geomicrob. J., Vol. 13:91-101.

Sherwood Lollar, B., Frape, S.K., Fritz, P., Macko, S.A., Welhan, J.A., Blomqvist, R. and Lahermo, P.W., 1993. Evidence for bacterially-generated hydrocarbon gas in Canadian and Fennoscandian Shield rocks. Geochim. Cosmo. acta , Vol. 57:5073-5085.

Sherwood Lollar, B., Frape, S.K., Weise, S.M., Fritz, P., Macko, S.A. and Welhan, J.A., 1993. Abiogenic methanogenesis in crystalline rocks. Geochim. Cosmo. acta , Vol. 75:5087-5097.