Amy Frappier

Department Chair / Associate Professor—Paleoclimatology
Formerly the Charles Lubin Family Professor for Women in Science (2009–15)
Email: afrappie@skidmore.edu
Phone: (518) 580-8371
Office Location: Annex 211

Scientific Director, Stable isotope and Paleoclimate Analysis Laboratory (SPA Lab)

EDUCATION

Ph.D. 2006, Earth and environmental sciences, University of New Hampshire Cognate; 2006, college teaching, University of New Hampshire
M.S. 2002, Earth system science-geochemical systems, University of New Hampshire
B.S. 1999, Geological sciences, University of Maine at Orono

COURSES TAUGHT AT SKIDMORE

GE 112 Introduction to Oceanography (every spring semester)
GE 211 Climatology
GE 311 Paleoclimatology
- HF 300.001 Paleoclimatology Practicum
GE 320 Global Biogeochemical Cycles
GE 371 Independent Study
Scribner Seminar: Dangerous Earth

See current course list

RECENT THESIS STUDENTS

Sarah Turner '15, Resolving seasonal hydroclimatic variability in 2200 years of calcite growth in a muddy stalagmite from Yucatan, Mexico
Cameron Rossington '15, A statistical analysis of tropical cyclone masking patterns in published speleothem records
Mary Brill '14, Stable isotope stratigraphy in Quaternary stalagmites and Devonian carbonates.
Maryann Countryman '13, An exploratory study of a fast-growing tropical stalagmite from the last glacial period (M.I.S. Stage 4)
Logan D. Brenner '12, Geochemistry of a tropical stalagmite during the last interglacial (Eemian stage)
Logan D. Brenner '12, Named Goldwater Scholar
Aurora Pinkey-Drobnis '12, ~2200 year annual layer chronology of a muddy stalagmite from Yucatan, Mexico
Alena Chubet '12, Speleothem stratigraphy and stable isotope analysis.
Valerie Schwartz '11, Stratigraphy of a tropical stalagmite from Yucatan, Mexico
Audrey Wronski '10, Geochemistry of a muddy stalagmite from Yucatan, Mexico using LA-ICPMS: 500 years of climate variations and volcanic signals.

MASTER THESIS SUPERVISED:

Maria Rose Crosby, A Late Pleistocene to Mid-Holocene Stable Osygen Isotope Record form a Belize Stalagmite. MS Thesis, 2010. Boston College.
James Pyburn, A2,205-year record of tropical cyclone strikes near Yucatan, Mexico, from mud layers in a stalagmite. MS Thesis, 2009, Boston College

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Baldini, L., J. U. L. Baldini, J. McElwane, A. B. Frappier, Y. Asmerom, K.-b. Liu, K. Prufer, H. E. Ridley, V. Polyak, D.J. Kennett, C. Macpherson, V. Aquino, J. Awe, and S. F. M. Breitenbach, (in press at Scientific Reports) Persistent northward North Atlantic tropical cyclone track migration over the past five centuries.
Jamieson, R. A., J. U. L. Baldini, A. B. Frappier, and W. Müller, 2015. Volcanic ash fall events identified using principal component analysis of a high-resolution speleothem trace element dataset. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v. 426: 36–45. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2015.06.014.
Frappier, A. B., R. H. Lindemann and B. R. Frappier, 2015. Stable isotope analysis of Dacryoconarid carbonate microfossils: A new tool for Devonian oxygen and carbon isotope stratigraphy. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, v. 29, n. 8:764-74. doi: 10.1002/rcm.7159.
Frappier, A. B., *J. Pyburn, *A. D. Pinkey-Drobnis, X. Wang, D. R. Corbett, and B. H. Dahlin, 2014. Two millennia of tropical cyclone-induced mud layers in a northern Yucatán stalagmite reveal multiple overlapping climatic hazards during the Maya Terminal Classic “megadroughts”. Geophysical Research Letters, v. 41, n. 14:5148-5157. doi:10.1002/2014GL059882.
Frappier, A. B., 2013. Masking of interannual climate proxy signals by residual tropical cyclone rainwater: Evidence and challenges for low-latitude speleothem paleoclimatology. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, v. 14, n. 9: 3632–3647. doi: 10.1002/ggge.20218.
Frappier, A. B. 2007. A stepwise screening system to select storm-sensitive stalagmites: Taking a targeted approach to speleothem sampling, Quaternary international. doi: 10.1016/j.quanit.2007.09.042.
Frappier, A. B., Knutson, T., Liu, K.-b., Emanuel, K., 2007. Coordinating paleoclimate research on hurricanes with hurricane-climate theory and modeling. Tellus A, 59: 529–537. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0870.2007.00250.x
Frappier, A.B., D. Sahagian, S.J. Carpenter, L.A. González, and B.R. Frappier, 2007. A stalagmite proxy record of recent tropical cyclone events. Geology, v7, n. 2: 111–114; doi: 10.1130/G23145A.
Frappier, A., D. Sahagian, L. A. González, and S. J. Carpenter, 2002. El Niño events recorded by stalagmite carbon isotopes, Science v. 298, n. 5593:565.

RESEARCH

INTERESTS

Paleoclimatology, stable isotope geochemistry, environmental geology, Earth system science, caves and karst, hurricane-climate interactions, climate change and society.