Adit Ghosh

Summary Statement of Research Interests

I am most interested in how large organisms (e.g., plants, humans and other large mammals, etc) change geomorphology, biogeochemical cycles, and climate (I term this Geo-Macrobiology) which I look at through the lens of sedimentology, stable isotope geochemistry, cosmogenic nuclides and near-surface geophysical methods across modern, historical, archeological and geological time.

Human impacts on erosion in the Channel Islands: I evaluate how human arrival beginning with the Early Chumash (~12,500 BP) and extending through the introduction of pastoralism in the 1800s CE altered erosion rates. This work employs cosmogenic nuclides (¹°Be and in-situ ¹4C in quartz) to quantify changes in landscape denudation.

Late Paleozoic chemical weathering and atmospheric carbon dioxide: Using lithium isotopes in brachiopods (~440–300 Million years ago), I reconstruct changes in chemical weathering intensity to test whether the evolution of trees contributed to the Late Paleozoic decline in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Post-wildfire groundwater dynamics and geomorphology: Focusing on the Santa Monica Mountains following the 2025 Palisades Fire, I investigate how wildfire influences subsurface hydrology and slope stability. This project integrates Electrical Resistivity Tomography with water isotope analyses.

Research Keywords

Geobiology, Stable isotope geochemistry, Cosmogenic nuclide geochemistry, Near-surface geophysics, Sedimentology and Stratigraphy

Research Specialties

Geobiology, Bio-geomorphology, Stable isotope and cosmogenic Geochemistry, Sedimentology, Biomarkers

Journal Article

• (2014). Theoretical Derivations of a Direct Band Gap Semiconductor of SiC Doped with Ge. Journal of Electronic Materials.

• American Philosphical Society, Lewis and Clark Field Scholar 2023-2024, 2024-2025
• GSA Geobiology Geomicrobiology (GBGM) student presentation award, 2024-2025