User:Steampunz/Nora Noffke

About
Nora Noffke is a geobiologist currently employed as an associate professor for Oceans and Earth Sciences at the Old Dominion University in Norfolk Virginia Her expertise is in Biofilm Sedimentology where she researches the biofilm structures of modern marine environments and fossil records as well as combining interdisciplinary studies of sedimentology with microbiology, geochemistry, and mineralogy. Nora has become a dominant professional for her work on microbial mats and sedimentary structures in sandy deposits, and has initiated the actuopaleontological approach to the examination of the Earths past. Nora has contributed to countless publications including articles, books, book chapters as well as presentations, for the full list of her publications visit her page on the Old Dominion University's website. She has been involved with many impressive projects including the Mars Rover Mission in 2003 with NASA, as well as arranging the First SEPM Field Conference on Siliciclastic Microbial Mats, established the Gordon Research Conference 'Geobiology,' and presented at a variety of symposiums and conferences such as the Geological Society of America Meetings.

Today she serves as Chair of the Subcommission on Precambrian Stratigraphy of the International Stratigraphic Commission, which are responsible for trying to piece together the timelines of earth, as well as make the information more accessible to the public. She is also an editor for the Treatise of Invertebrate Paleontology which records all new fossil types of invertebrates and archives them for future researchers.

In honor of Nora Noffke's efforts and revolutionary ideas within the science community, a genus that was discovered at Ediacaran Grant Bluff Formation, Australia was named Noffkarkys storaaslii in 2020.

Education
Her education consists of a bachelor of Science in Geology-Paleontology from the University of Tübingen, Germany in 1990. in 1992 she got her Master of Science in geology-paleontology from the University of Tübingen, in that time her thesis advisor was Dolf Seilacher, together they carried out research on trace fossils. Followed by her passion, Nora continued her education to complete her Ph.D. in Geomicrobiology at the University of Oldenburg, Germany. At the University of Oldenburg she worked alongside Dr. Gisela Gerdes, a prominent microbiologist who researched the field of modern microbial mats in siliciclastic deposits.

Ancient Earth
The experimental use of Microbially-Induced-Sedimentary-Structures (MISS) has given researchers an advantage in terms of dating microbes within sedimentary layers. Nora discovered 16 different types of MISS that are the result of different factors of growth, trapping, biostabilization, baffling, and binding. Nora used this process during an excavation at the Dresser Formation, Pilbara, Western Australia and thus may have found what could be the oldest undisputed evidence of life to this day, estimated to be about 3.48 billions year ago during the early Archean period. These mats that cover tidal flats in unusual textures and patch-like formations that are within the sand holds tiny microbes that are shown to have evidence that they existed both historically and presently.

Nora mapped and analyzed MISS at Dinosaur Ridge which further developed our knowledge of paleoenvironmental conditions that formed the Upper Crustaceous "J" Sandstone, and our broaden our insights of how similar tracksites developed.

Nora Noffke in collaboration with Gisela Gerdes, Thomas Klenke, and Wolfgang E. Krumben suggested a new fifth group to Pettijohn and Potter's classification of primary sedimentary structures, they called the group bedding modified by microbial mats and biofilms and divided it into 2 classes one for those on bedding planes and the second for those within beds. The first class was characterized by leveled wrinkled structures and depositional surfaces, microbial mat chips, remnants from erosion and pockets, palimpsest/multidirectional ripples, shrinkage cracks and mat curls. The second class, within beds, was characterized by gas domes, sponge pore fabrics and fenestrae structures, oriented grains, benthic ooids, sinoidal laminae, mat-layer-bound grain size and biolaminites.

Astrobiology
In her book Geology: Microbial Mats in Sandy Deposits from the Archean to Today, Nora emphasizes that Miss has great potential in offering new evidence of extraterrestrial life on Mars.

With their discovery of the ancient microbes at Dresser Formation, Nora hypothesized while investigating images that were taken by the NASA curiosity rover on mars that what may have lived on earth almost 3.48 billions years ago could be the same microbial mats that currently living on Mars. The photos were taken at the Gillespie Lake outcrop in Yellowknife Bay, which is a dry lake bed that flooded intermittently billions of years ago. Nora published in the journal Astrobiology a comparison of both sedimentary structures of Martian and of those on earth.

Publications

 * Nora Noffke published on June 17, 2010 the Geobiology: Microbial Mats in Sandy Deposits from the Archean Era to Today. She discusses the discovery and path of finding life on planets such as our own through identifying features and the preservation of microbial mats. As well as identifies these forms through the environment and deposits of fossils through the different eras.


 * In 2012 Noffke published another Geobiological book called Geobiology: Objectives, Concepts, Perspectives.


 * Published in 2016 Noffke wrote Introduction to Geobiology. Identifying the basics in both a geological and biological perspective.

Informational Video:

 * 2015, Nora Noffke and MISS, Astro Publishing.

** For the full list of her publications visit her page on the Old Dominion University's website

Achievements
2007: Jamie Lee Wilson Award for Excellence in Sedimentary Geology by a Young Scientist

2007: Fellow of the Geological Society of America, Geological Society of America

2010: Outstanding Contributions to Geobiology, GSA Division for Geobiology

2014: Nora was given the Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)