The Team
Marcie Phillips (owner, nannos)
Hi! I am Marcie (with an 'i-e’) Purkey Phillips, owner of Precision Paleo. I have been a professional biostratigrapher since 2013. While my training is first in marine diatoms, then calcareous nannofossils, I have focused my specialization in data collection and analysis of nannos. I am familiar with the whole section, from the Cretaceous through Recent, for the purposes of geologic age modeling and paleoenvironmental interpretation. My expertise also includes calibrating, analyzing, and adding precision to vintage and recent biostratigraphic datasets of most other microfossil groups such as foraminifers and radiolarians. My research interests focus on developing biostratigraphy-based geologic age models and paleoenvironmental interpretations particularly in places that are not well understood. I enjoy reconstructing geologic history by integrating biostratigraphic data with any and all other paleontological and geological data sets to produce a comprehensive interpretation.
My education includes a B.Sc. in Geology from the University of Nevada, Reno (2009) and a M.Sc. in Micropaleontology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2013). From 2002 – 2014 I was enlisted in the Army National Guard.
My associated professional experience includes offshore and onshore participation on International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expeditions 337 and 381; employment with
Houston-based Noble Energy (acquired by Chevron in October 2020); contracting with PaleoData, a Petrostrat company, the leading micropaleontology consultant in the Gulf of Mexico; and, currently, as a scientific researcher with the University of Texas at Austin Institute for Geophysics (UTIG). I have worked offshore and onshore basins around the globe including the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Corinth, the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the North and equatorial Pacific, the Denver-Julesburg Basin, and northeastern Nevada.
(Photo: Marcie Phillips (Univ. of Texas with sedimentologist, Rob Gawthorpe (Univ. of Bergen), working the night shift in the Gulf of Corinth, Greece, on IODP Expedition 381 (2017).
Marci Robinson (forams)
I am Marci (with an ‘i’) Robinson. I was a Research Geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey from 2007 through 2025 at which time I retired from government service. I am a micropaleontologist specializing in foraminifera and climate change research that addresses critical societal issues and provides unbiased data and information to decision makers and the public. My research focuses primarily on understanding how warm periods of the geologic past affected ocean and nearshore systems at multiple scales. It involves data collection, micropaleontological analyses, and paleoenvironmental reconstructions and utilizes domestic and international collaborations to integrate other micropaleontological analyses, geochemistry, palynology, sedimentology, and modeling. The goal is to better understand past climatic events and their corresponding changes in environmental conditions and how they apply to modern systems.
My education includes a B.S. in Earth Systems Science from George Mason University (1996) and a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Policy (Geology) also from George Mason University (2007). From 2007 to 2009, I was a Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow at USGS.
My professional experience includes decades of biostratigraphic analyses and paleoecological reconstructions in all ocean basins and the Mediterranean Sea and in the shallow marine environments along the US Atlantic coast.
Photo caption: Marci Robinson inside a Paleocene Moeraki Boulder along the Otago coast of New Zealand (2019)