Devonian Anoxia, Geochemistry, Geochronology, and Extinction Research

The DAGGER (Devonian Anoxia, Geochemistry, Geochronology, and Extinction Research) group is an interdisciplinary, international research team focusing on the systematics of mass extinctions in the Late Devonian.

The DAGGER group is coordinated by faculty at Appalachian State University in the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences and colleagues in Germany and Austria, but consists of geochemists, sedimentologists, paleontologists, stratigraphers, and science communicators from around the globe. We work primarily in the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (northwestern China and southwestern Mongolia), southeast Asia, the US, and in Europe to determine the extent, scope, and cause of Devonian ocean anoxia events, their potential for organic carbon sequestration (natural gas deposits), and the rebound from the mass extinctions associated with these events. 

We are affiliated with

• the UNESCO International Geoscience Programme's Climate Change and Biodiversity Patterns in the Mid-Palaeozoic Project (IGCP 596), 
• the UNESCO International Geoscience Programme's Application of Magnetic Susceptibility on Palaeozoic Sedimentary Rocks (IGCP 580), and
• the Geochronology and Isotope Geochemistry Lab at UNC-Chapel Hill

Our work has been funded by National Geographic, the Explorers Club, the National Science Foundation, UNESCO (via the International Geoscience Programme), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (the German National Science Foundation equivalent), and a variety of other sources.