Anthony Dosseto

I do science a bit like a dog spotting a squirrel — easily distracted, relentlessly curious.

Fortunately, my field, biogeochemistry, thrives on exactly that kind of curiosity. As Karl Turekian, one of the founders of the discipline, once put it (as quoted by Francis Albarède): “No scientific field is immune to geochemistry.” From deep time to human health, I’ve found that to be very true.

At the University of Wollongong, I founded the Wollongong Isotope Geochronology Laboratory (WIGL) to tackle questions that span vast scales of time, space, and application:

What was Earth like 600–800 million years ago?
This extraordinary period includes multiple “Snowball Earth” episodes — times when the planet may have been almost entirely frozen — followed soon after by the emergence of the first animals (long before cat videos).

How does Earth’s surface respond to climate change?
Mountains, rivers, and soils constantly “breathe” as climate shifts. By studying how landscapes respond to changes in rainfall and temperature, we can better understand the long-term evolution and resilience of soils and water resources.

How have fire regimes changed through time — and why does that matter today?
I develop new biogeochemical proxies to reconstruct past fire activity and investigate how different fire regimes shape ecosystems. This includes work on the ecological impacts of cultural burning and how Indigenous land management practices influence landscape health over long timescales.

When did humans become a geological force?
I study how the diets and mobility of early humans evolved alongside changing ecosystems, and when human activity began to leave an irreversible imprint on the geological record.

What can metals tell us about health and disease?
Not the music (though I’m a fan), but elements like calcium, copper, iron, and zinc. Their behaviour in the body can reveal critical insights into chronic kidney disease, osteoporosis, bone health, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases — an exciting and rapidly growing frontier at the intersection of biogeochemistry and medicine.

In short, if there’s a system — natural, environmental, or biological — chances are biogeochemistry has something to say about it.