About

Frank Corsetti is a professor of Earth Sciences at USC Dornsife. He studies the co-evolution of the Earth and its biosphere from a geobiologic perspective, focusing on how life has influenced the Earth's history and how planetary changes have affected the evolution of life. His research includes the study of life during Snowball Earth, the most severe glaciation approximately 700 million years ago, as well as investigations into the origin of animals, mass extinctions, and the development of biosignatures for ancient rocks on Earth and other planetary bodies such as Mars. Corsetti has examined rocks dating back as old as 3.5 billion years and has conducted fieldwork across various locations including the US, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Australia, Namibia, and China. His academic background includes a Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a B.S. in Geology from the University of California, Davis. He has held positions as an assistant and associate professor at USC since 2000 and is actively involved in research, teaching, and service within the geosciences community.

Research topics

• Earth science
• Chemistry
• Paleontology
• Geology
• Geochemistry

Selected publications

• Exploring Mechanisms of Microbialite Texture Formation through mapping in situ CaCO ₃ precipitation and Microbial Cell Position

  2025-01-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Evaporitic Preservation of Modern Carotenoid Biomarkers and Halophilic Microorganisms in Mars Analog Hypersaline Environments

  Astrobiology · 2025-11-01

  articleSenior author

  Our investigation in Mars-relevant terrestrial environments where biological material is entombed within rapidly precipitated evaporite crystals has given us the ability to evaluate the preservation potential of a hypersaline brine system in advance of interrogating similar environments on Mars. These evaporite minerals, halite (NaCl) and gypsum (CaSO 4 ), have been found to host authigenic fluid inclusions over geologic time, with cellular life and carotenoid pigments that are understudied in the planetary context. Great Salt Lake provides an excellent site to test the ability to detect organic matter in Mars-relevant evaporite crystals. DNA was extracted to determine which microbial clades were present and assess the attenuation of DNA preservation from the host fluid of the lake to the mineral. Raman spectroscopy was used to investigate the presence of pigments that have longer preservation potential than DNA. Compared with the water column, evaporite minerals preserve higher volumes of DNA and associated biochemistry, whereas entombed fluid inclusions preserve even higher magnitudes of both biomarkers. This indicates organic addition and continued preservation as the crystals precipitate from the fluid, which was later confirmed as micrometer-scale environments continued to maintain the ecology within closed-system fluid inclusions. Raman analyses of halite revealed the presence of β-carotene and bacterioruberin, consistent with the presence of carotenoid-generating bacteria and archaea in this hypersaline environment, which are characterized by pink coloration. The continued preservation of these chemical biomarkers over time has led to the formation of physical biosignatures within the evaporite record. Given that these same minerals are present in ancient fluvial sites across Mars, halite and gypsum are ideal candidates for future in situ observation and should be considered high priority for sample return missions.

  PublisherDOI

• Spatially Resolved Deconvolution of Texture Formation and Initial Diagenetic Mechanisms in Carbonate Dendrolitic Microbialites

  Abstracts with programs - Geological Society of America · 2025-01-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Investigating the incorporation of organic matter into evaporite minerals as a tool to search for the record of life on Earth and elsewhere

  Abstracts with programs - Geological Society of America · 2025-01-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Did atmospheric carbon dioxide decline due to the evolution of trees in the Late Paleozoic as suggested by Carbon Cycle Models?

  2025-01-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Ancient frameworks as modern templates: exploring reef rubble consolidation in an ancient reef system

  Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2025-02-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Both natural and human-induced stressors cause reef erosion, resulting in reef rubble formation. When consolidated, the rubble can facilitate reef recovery, sparking interest in artificial rubble stabilization as a method for reef restoration. However, our understanding of the natural processes governing coral reef regeneration within rubble beds is limited. This study examines the regeneration processes within ancient rubble frameworks in a Late Triassic carbonate platform. Results show that Late Triassic rubble environments exhibit successional trajectories similar to contemporary rubble environments. Key organisms such as sponges, calcareous red algae, bryozoans, microbes and scleractinian corals, which are instrumental in the consolidation of modern reef rubble, appear to have played comparable roles during the Late Triassic. The similarities between Late Triassic and modern reef rubble consolidation highlight enduring ecological mechanisms important for reef regeneration. This study deepens our understanding of reef dynamics and offers valuable insights for improving current reef restoration strategies, grounded in time-tested natural processes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Evidence for Low Dissolved Silica in mid-Mesozoic Oceans

  American Journal of Science · 2025-01-08 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The geologic history of dissolved silica concentration in the ocean (DSi) is central to understanding the evolution of silica biomineralization, the interactions between the global carbon and silicon cycles, and their combined role controlling global climate over geologic time. However, the silica cycle in the geologic past is under-constrained, especially during major mass extinction events that impacted biosilicifiers and were associated with dramatic climate change. We measured the silicon isotope ratios (δ 30 Si) of 76 sponge spicules from the Panthalassic Ocean spanning the Triassic–Jurassic boundary (ca. 201 Ma) to constrain DSi concentrations during the mid-Mesozoic. Spicule measurements have mean δ 30 Si values of –0.25‰ ± 0.99‰. Our data, combined with constraints on seawater δ 30 Si from coeval radiolarians, suggest that mid-Mesozoic DSi was between 20–100 µM, a similar range to the modern ocean. Our results support increasing evidence that by the Mesozoic DSi had already decreased by orders of magnitude relative to the Precambrian. These results imply that radiolarians and sponges were drawing down DSi prior to diatom ecological dominance. Increasing sponge δ 30 Si values across the Triassic–Jurassic boundary, coupled with modeling evidence and previous palaeoecological observations, support that warming, increased weathering, and Si delivery before the end-Triassic extinction may have facilitated sponge expansion during the extinction recovery interval.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Pulses of ocean acidification at the Triassic–Jurassic boundary

  Nature Communications · 2025-07-14 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Mass extinctions have repeatedly perturbed the history of life, but their causes are often elusive. Ocean acidification has been implicated during Triassic–Jurassic environmental perturbations, but this interval lacks direct reconstructions of ocean pH. Here, we present boron isotope data from well-preserved fossil oysters, which provide evidence for acidification of ≥ 0.29 pH units coincident with a 2 ‰ negative carbon isotope excursion (the “main” CIE) following the end–Triassic extinction. These results suggest a prolonged interval of CO 2 -driven environmental perturbation that may have delayed ecosystem recovery. Earth system modelling with cGENIE paired with our pH constraints demonstrates this was driven by predominantly mantle-derived carbon. Ocean acidification therefore appears to be associated with three of the five largest extinction events in Earth history, highlighting the catastrophic ecological impact of major perturbations to the carbon cycle in Earth’s past, and possibly Earth’s anthropogenically perturbed future.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Distinguishing microbial mat formed Mg carbonate from weathering formed Mg carbonate using dual clumped isotopes and fluorescence microscopy

  2025-01-01

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  PublisherDOI

• TRACKING COMPOSITION OF SEARLES LAKE BRINES AND MINERAL FLUID INCLUSIONS WITH PROGRESSIVE EVAPORATION VIA RAMAN AND LASER INDUCED BREAKDOWN SPECTROSCOPY

  Abstracts with programs - Geological Society of America · 2024-01-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Biogeochemistry of the Snowball Earth

  NSF · $109k · 2004–2007

• Collaborative Research: Investigating Early Triassic Ocean Chemistry, Stratigraphy, and Paleobiology During the Protracted Biotic Recovery from the Permo-Triassic Mass Extinction

  NSF · $150k · 2005–2008

• Earth-Life Transitions: Linked geochemical/biotic response to massive volcanic CO2 injection during the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction

  NSF · $1.0M · 2013–2019

Frequent coauthors

• David J. Bottjer

  118 shared

• Victoria A. Petryshyn

  99 shared

• William M. Berelson

  89 shared

• John R. Spear

  Colorado School of Mines

  68 shared

• S. J. Loyd

  California State University, Fullerton

  57 shared

• W. Berelson

  52 shared

• Bradley S. Stevenson

  Planetary Science Institute

  40 shared

• A. Joshua West

  University of Southern California

  38 shared

Awards & honors

• Fellow, Geological Society of America (2012-2013)
• USC College Award for General Education Teaching (2010-2011)
• USC Center for Excellence in Teaching, Faculty Fellow (08/01…
• National Academies Kavli Frontiers in Science Conference Inv…
• USC Mellon Mentorship Award, Faculty to Graduate Student Adv…