The Harvard NAI team was constituted in 1998 as an interactive group of biogeochemists, paleontologists, sedimentary geologists, geochemists, and tectonic geologists assembled with the common goal of understanding the coevolution of life and environments in Earth history.

The team originally proposed to focus multidisciplinary research on four critical intervals of planetary change: the early Archean (>3000 million years ago) when life began, the early Paleoproterozoic (2400-2200 Ma) when oxygen began to accumulate in the atmosphere and surface ocean, the terminal Proterozoic and Early Cambrian (750-525 Ma) when animal life radiated, and the Permo-Triassic boundary (251 Ma) when mass extinction removed some 90 percent of Earth's species diversity, permanently altering the course of evolution.

Given reduced funding levels in years 1 and 2, however, the team chose to focus on the latter three intervals; team members have made substantial contributions to each research area. On the other hand, increased funding in years 3 and 4 and strong interest by colleagues at Harvard and MIT have enabled us to expand both our membership and intellectual purview. Thus, to the three projects funded from the outset (and approached in fresh ways by our newest co-investigators), we have added three research foci.

John Hayes' research at the interface of microbiology and biogeochemistry expanded as a result of incremental funding that enabled his group to undertake a substantial collaborative effort with the NAI Team at MBL.

The addition of new MIT colleague Roger Summons in year 4 has further bolstered our team's collaborative research in biogeochemistry. In association with the Spanish Center for Astrobiology, Andrew Knoll has undertaken research on Neogene iron formations in southern Spain that will help to guide rover research on Mars hematites during the 2003 Mars MER mission. Charles Marshall pursues statistical analyses of molecular sequence and biostratigraphic data as part of the NAI Focus Group on Evogenomics.