Dr Hana Jurikova

Senior Research Fellow

Researcher profile

Phone

+44 (0)1334 46 2635

Email

hj43@st-andrews.ac.uk

 

Research areas

I am an Earth Scientist and Isotope Biogeochemist investigating how climate, oceans and life have co-evolved through Earth history. My research examines how mass extinction events and biogeochemical processes drive Earth System change from short-term perturbations to long-term evolution.

To address these questions, I develop and apply novel elemental and isotopic approaches to fossil, sedimentary and evaporitic archives. I am a leading developer of the boron isotope technique, which I use to: (i) reconstruct past changes in ocean pH and atmospheric CO₂, (ii) quantify secular variations in the boron isotope composition of seawater and constrain the global boron cycle, and (iii) investigate biomineralisation mechanisms in marine calcifiers, with a particular focus on brachiopods and coral reefs.

I received my PhD in Marine Biogeochemistry (2015–2018) from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany, funded by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship (BASE-LiNE Earth ITN). I subsequently held a postdoctoral position (2018–2020) at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, supported by the German Research Foundation and the ICDP/IODP Priority Programme. 

My career has crossed fascinating places, from cutting-edge laboratories to years chasing baboons and elephants in the Tanzanian bush, tracking elusive birds in the Eastern Arc Mountains, scuba diving with sharks, and collecting unique samples on research cruises to the South China Sea.

My work has been recognised with the 2023 Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award in Biogeosciences from the European Geosciences Union and the 2023 Lyell Fund Award from the Geological Society of London.

In 2023, I was awarded an Early Career Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust to investigate the drivers of super-hot greenhouse climates in Earth’s past. In 2025, I received an ERC Starting Grant to quantify long-term changes in ocean pH and atmospheric CO₂ across Earth's history.

Further information and updates are available via my GoogleScholar and ResearchGate profiles. 

Selected publications

• Open access

  Carbon dioxide has been regulating Earth’s climate for hundreds of millions of years – new study

  Jurikova, H., 6 Jan 2025, The Conversation.

  Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article

• Open access

  Rapid rise in atmospheric CO₂ marked the end of the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age

  Jurikova, H., Garbelli, C., Whiteford, R., Reeves, T., Laker, G., Liebetrau, V., Gutjahr, M., Eisenhauer, A., Savickaite, K., Leng, M. J., Iurino, D. A., Viaretti, M., Tomašových, A., Zhang, Y., Wang, W.-Q., Shi, G. R., Shen, S.-Z., Rae, J. W. B. & Angiolini, L., 6 Jan 2025, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Nature Geoscience. Latest articles, 8 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• Reversing Earth’s carbon engine

  Jurikova, H., 3 Oct 2022, In: Nature Geoscience. 15, 10, p. 756–757 2 p.

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment/debate › peer-review

• Permian–Triassic mass extinction pulses driven by major marine carbon cycle perturbations

  Jurikova, H., Gutjahr, M., Wallmann, K., Flögel, S., Liebetrau, V., Posenato, R., Angiolini, L., Garbelli, C., Brand, U., Wiedenbeck, M. & Eisenhauer, A., Nov 2020, In: Nature Geoscience. 13, p. 745–750

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

 

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