David Valentine

Associate Professor

Contacts

Department of Earth Science
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106

tel: (805) 893-2973
fax: (805) 893-2314
valentine@geol.ucsb.edu

Personal web site

Valentine Lab Members

Research Description

Valentine's specific research interests include methane hydrates (biomarkers, psychrophilic methanogenesis, anaerobic methane oxidation, water column methanotrophy), organic carbon cycling in anoxic sediments (improved analytical analyses, methane production/consumption, amino acid oxidation, decomposition of aromatics), hydrogen biogeochemistry (interspecies hydrogen transfer, global hydrogen cycle), anaerobic microbial ecology (relation of community structure to metabolic function, metabolic biomarkers, syntrophy, bioenergetics), and hydrocarbon seep environments (sulfate reduction, methanogenesis, ethane and propane biogeochemistry, microbial activity).

Research Groups

• Valentine Biogeochemistry Group
• Valentine Lab

Biography

Valentine currently serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Earth Science at UCSB. His research interests include: geomicrobiology, geochemistry, anaerobic microbial ecology, and Archaea, with an emphasis on anoxic systems. Valentine received a CAREER award in chemical oceanography from the National Science Foundation in 2004 to investigate gas seeps, and maintains additional projects in areas of oil biodegradation, enhanced natural gas production, natural isotope effects, and archaeal ecology.

Affiliations

• Marine Science Institute
• Adjunct Faculty, Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology

Awards/Honors

• NSF Career Award, 2005

Selected Publications

• Adaptations to energy stress dictate the ecology and evolution of the Archaea, Nature Reviews Microbiology, 5, 2007, 316-323, Valentine, D.L.
• Carbon and hydrogen isotope fractionation associated with the aerobic microbial oxidation of methane, ethane, propane and butane, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 71, 2007, 271-283, Kinnaman F.S., D.L. Valentine and S.C. Tyler.
• Diversity of Archaea in Marine Sediments from Skan Bay, Alaska, Including Cultivation of Methanogens and a Description of Methanogenium boonei, sp. nov., Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 73(2), 2007, 407-414, Kendall M., G. Wardlaw, C. Tang, A. Bonin, Y Liu, and D.L. Valentine.
• Climatically driven emissions of hydrocarbons from marine sediments during deglaciation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103(37), 2006, 13570-13574, Hill T.M., J.P. Kennett, D.L. Valentine, Z. Yang, C.M. Reddy, R.K. Nelson, R.J. Behl, C. Robert and L. Beaufort.
• Pure culture growth of fermentative bacteria facilitated by H2 removal: bioenergetics and H2 production, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 72 (2), 2006, 1079-1085, Adams C. J., M.C. Redmond and D.L. Valentine.
• Biogeochemical investigations of marine methane seeps, Hydrate Ridge, Oregon, J. Geophys. Res., 110, 2005, G02005, Valentine, D. L., M. Kastner, G. D. Wardlaw, X. Wang, A. Purdy, and D. H. Bartlett.
• Evidence for Salt Diffusion from Sediments Contributing to Increasing Salinity in the Salton Sea, California, Hydrobiologia, 533, 2005, 77-85, Wardlaw G. W. and D. L. Valentine.
• Hydrogen isotope fractionation during H2/CO2 acetogenesis: hydrogenase efficiency and the origin of lipid-bound hydrogen, Geobiology, 2, 2004, 179-188, Valentine, D.L. A.L. Sessions, S.C. Tyler, and A. Chidthaisong.
• Isotopic evidence for the incorporation of methane-derived carbon into living foraminifera from modern methane seeps, Hydrate Ridge, OR., Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 68(12), 2004, 4619-4627, Hill, T.M., J.P. Kennett and D.L. Valentine.
• Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Cellular Membranes: A Unified Concept, Progress in Lipids Research, 43, 2004, 383-402, Valentine, R.C. and D.L. Valentine.