Laura Lapham

Lapham Photo

National Energy Technology Lab, Dept. of Energy, Gas Hydrate Post-doctoral Researcher


Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007

My research is concentrated on studying methane cycling at cold seeps, biogeochemcial cycling of methane and sulfer in deep sea sediments, development of deep sea instrumentation to collect novel samples, stable isotope geochemistry, modeling of biogeochemical processes and temporal variability of dissolved methane concentrations. The focus of my research has been mainly on gas hydrate environments. However, I am open to many other systems that relate to the carbon cycle. My research seeks to understand how methane is distributed between different pools, e.g. dissolved or hydrate phases, and also to understand how local biogeochemical processes affect this methane, mostly through anaerobic methane oxidation.

Tools used include stable isotopes of microbial reactants and products, mainly methane, other light hydrocarbons, and dissovled inorganic carbon. I also have experience with diagenetic models dealing with the 1-D difusion, advection, reaction of methane and sulfate.