Olena Shevchuk

About me

I research and stratify  Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous strata using palynological analysis. I also use these data to establish, refine, and correlate biozones (biostratigraphic units) based on age-diagnostic species of fossil dinocysts, spores and pollen. This helps with dating and correlating strata over wide geographic regions and improves international biostratigraphic zonation schemes for the Mesozoic. By using extensive assemblages of fossil spores and pollen, I am able to use statistical approaches to track variations in the flora and in the landscape that may relate to evolutionary changes in plants or changes in the climate or depositional setting. In particular, the representation of fossil dinoflagellate cysts is useful for detecting changes in the marine influence in sedimentary basins and sea-level changes during the Triassic- Paleogene. Taxonomic studies of continuous palynoassemblages from the Barremian - Maastrichtian succession in Ukraine enabled tracking the evolutionary changes in angiosperms during their initial radiation in the Early-Late Cretaceous. 

Many of my scientific publications encompass reconstruction of the paleogeographic conditions and vegetation of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods in various parts of Ukraine. 

This work has concentrated on Mesozoic sequences from Ukraine, but is now expanding to include studies of Mesozoic sedimentary sequences in Sweden and elsewhere.

These works have implications for the exploration and management of strata-hosted resources, such as groundwater and fossil fuels.