The Higgins Lab at Princeton University

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    In 2015, the team led by Prof. John Higgins, extract a three-inch ice core seen here in its drill barrel in the remote Allan Hills in Antarctica. Photo credit: Yuzhen Yan *19
    Extracted three-inch ice core Blue ice core image
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    Two-billion-year-old salt (pink-white recrystallized halite) with embedded anhydrite-magnesite and mudstone. Photo Credit: Pavel Medvedev (Karelian Research Centre, RU).
    Two-billion-year-old salt (pink-white recrystallized halite) with embedded anhydrite-magnesite and mudstone. Photo Credit: Pavel Medvedev (Karelian Research Centre, RU).
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    In 2015, John Higgins led a team of scientists to the remote Allan Hills, Antarctica to recover the oldest ice ever recorded by scientists. Photo credit: Dr. Yuzhen Yan *19
    Base camp on Allan Hills Blue Ice Area, Antarctica image, December 2015, Sean Mackay
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    Dr. Yuzhen Yan *19 setting up a drill site tent in the remote Allen Hills in Antarctica. Photo credit: Preston C. Kemeny ’15
    Image of setting up the drill tent in Allan Hills in Antarctica
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    John Higgins inspects a legacy mine on the Navajo Nation, as part of a program with Dr. Tommy Rock to identify, monitor and communicate any environmental hazards.
    BB5-John Higgins inspects a legacy uranium mine image

About John Higgins

John Higgins head shot

Professor John Higgins' primary research interest is the evolution of the carbon cycle and the global climate system over Earth history.  One focus has been on processes that control the chemical composition of seawater and how those processes have changed on geologic timescales.  Another is on the chemistry of carbonate sediments is affected by processes that occur post-deposition.  These include early diagenetic recrystallization, dolomitization and hydrothermal alteration.  The tools Prof. Higgins has employed to study these include numerical models of chemical and isotopic biogeochemical cycles, as well as analysis of traditional stable isotopes of oxygen and carbon, and new isotope systems such as magnesium, calcium, and potassium.

The Higgins Research Laboratory
 

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Higgins Lab construction and installation of the Thermo Neptune multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (MC ICP-MS) was completed in February 2013.  Since that time, we have established protocols for a number of metal isotope systems—magnesium, calcium, and most recently, potassium.  The development of stable potassium isotope measurements is significant as our achieved precision is a factor of 3-5 better than previously reported, allowing us to demonstrate stable K isotope variation in low temperature environments for the first time.

More about the Lab

Allan Hills Blue Ice Area, Antarctica image, December 2015, John Higgins

Sun glancing off the surface of the blue glacial ice exposed at the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area, Antarctica. Ice cores containing trapped air from 2+ million years ago were discovered here in 2015-2016. The blue ice is exposed at the surface through a combination of glacial flow and ablation from the winds that blow year-round in the area. 

Antartica Ice, including ice core

Recently In The News

Two million-year-old ice cores provide first direct observations of an ancient climate
Sept. 16, 2022

Princeton University-led researchers have extracted 2 million-year-old ice cores from Antarctica that provide the first direct observations of Earth’s climate at a time when the furred early ancestors of modern humans still roamed.

Prof. John Higgins partners with Oregon State University, and other paleoclimate experts, to build a NSF-funded Center for Oldest Ice Exploration
Nov. 29, 2021

Under a five-year, $25 million Science and Technology Center award, the Center for Oldest Ice Exploration (COLDEX) has been established to address climate change and its impacts.