Rate My Professor David Barbeau

Barbeau's research focuses on clastic sedimentology, tectonics and sedimentation, and basin analysis, employing field geology and laser-ablation U-Pb detrital zircon geochronology to reconstruct the evolution of tectonic plates, mountain belts, ocean and atmospheric circulation, climate, and biogeography over geologic timescales. His influential publications include "A flexural model for the Paradox Basin: implications for the tectonics of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains" (Basin Research, 2003), "Progressive Cenozoic cooling and the demise of Antarctica’s last refugium" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011), "Application of foreland basin detrital-zircon geochronology to the reconstruction of the southern and central Appalachian orogen" (Journal of Geology, 2010), "Detrital-zircon geochronology of the eastern Magallanes foreland basin: Implications for Eocene kinematics of the northern Scotia Arc and Drake Passage" (Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 2009), and more recent works such as "Detrital zircon provenance and transport pathways of Pleistocene-Holocene eolian sediment in the Pampean Plains, Argentina" (Geological Society of America Bulletin, 2023) and "A westerly wind dominated Puna Plateau during deposition of upper Pleistocene loessic sediments in the subtropical Andes, South America" (Nature Communications, 2022). With over 1,500 citations on Google Scholar, his contributions have advanced understanding in sedimentary provenance and paleotectonics. Barbeau received the Michael J. Mungo Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2017 and served as Pearce Faculty Fellow of the South Carolina Honors College from 2017 to 2023, as well as on the Editorial Board of Geology from 2013-2015 and 2018-2020. He teaches field-based introductory geology for geoscience majors, undergraduate sedimentary geology, geology field camp, and a graduate course in regional tectonics.